UFC 222 may not look like the card it was intended to be upon original construction, but Saturday's pay-per-view event from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas still boasts a pair of interesting fights atop the card. 

Cris "Cyborg" Justino will make the second defense of her UFC featherweight title when she faces Invicta FC 135-pound champ Yana Kunitskaya. In the co-main event, Frankie Edgar and Brian Ortega square off for a shot at Max Holloway's featherweight title. 

Let's take a closer look at the biggest storylines entering Saturday:

1. Wait a second … this card almost had Conor McGregor on it? That's what the UFC's lightweight champion  that went viral. UFC has remained hush on confirming whether McGregor, in fact, offered his services to face Frankie Edgar in order to save Saturday's card after featherweight champion Max Holloway pulled out. Reports then surfaced that McGregor asked UFC to create a 165-pound belt for the fight. For the record, both Edgar and his management have vehemently denied the accuracy of McGregor's claims. UFC instead chose to book the last-minute women's featherweight title match in its place, moving Edgar to the co-main event. One thing the "he said, he said" elements of McGregor's reveal did produce, however, was a small element of buzz surrounding the card that was sorely lacking following Holloway's withdrawal.

2. Cris 'Cyborg' remains a one-woman division. Stop what you're doing and take a peep at the rankings on UFC's website and you'll notice something specific about women's featherweight: there's nothing there. One full year after the inaugural 145-pound title bout between Holly Holm and Germane de Randamie, who was unceremoniously stripped months later for refusing to face Justino, and UFC still hasn't produced a list of contender's for the belt. Last July, Justino defeated Tonya Evinger, the Invicta bantamweight champion who moved up in weight for her Octagon debut, to win her first UFC title. In December, Cyborg defeated Holm, a bantamweight who has lost four of her last five. 

Justino will now face the new Invicta 135-pound champ who will also be moving up in weight for her UFC debut in unheralded Yana Kunitskaya. Even UFC's similarly maligned flyweight women's division, which debuted in December, has a list of rankings that is 15 fighters long. UFC has done Justino no favors by creating a division for her, making hasty decisions along the way and never fully populating it with viable fighters. This might help explain why the promotion was so previously interested in a super fight between Cyborg and bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. 

3. Frankie Edgar makes lateral move in pursuit of history. The list of fighters who have won UFC championships in multiple weight divisions remains as exclusive a list as you'll find. Yet Edgar, the 36-year-old former lightweight champ who just won't seem to get old, continues to clamor for a shot at entry. Edgar, who lost an interim featherweight title bout to Jose Aldo in 2016 (months before Aldo was elevated to full champion), saw his second shot at the belt denied last fall when he pulled out of a scheduled fight with Holloway due to injury. Holloway did the same to him just weeks ago, meaning Edgar must now face red-hot Brian Ortega on Saturday to reclaim that elusive title shot. The task won't be an easy one for "The Answer." The Holloway fight was also never easy to begin with, but things like odds and hurdles have never slowed down the overachieving Edgar, who continues his march toward immortality. 

4. Brian Ortega gets shot at UFC close up. There might not be anyone more unique in UFC than Ortega -- the flowing haired native of Southern California who flaunts a very accessible "surfer dude" vibe. The fighter known as "T-City" is also unique inside the cage as a submission specialist who has repeatedly proven he can end a fight at any given time, often in spectacular fashion. All six of Ortega's UFC fights have failed to go the distance and the unbeaten featherweight can take a major leap forward to a title shot should he solve the veteran Edgar. Should Ortega get there in his most important fight to date on Saturday, one can only imagine based on his track record that a fight or performance of the night bonus would come along with it. 

5. Does Cat Zingano have one more run at maxing out her potential? She was once the UFC women's bantamweight who many thought would have a chance at breaking Ronda Rousey's unbeaten streak. But after a series of difficult breaks -- including a serious knee injury and her husband's suicide -- Zingano suffered a puzzling 14-second loss to Rousey in 2015. One year later, Zingano's comeback fight ended with a decision loss to Julianna Pena. Now, at 35 and fresh off a nearly two-year hiatus, Zingano readies for what could be her final run at a UFC title against unbeaten Ketlen Viera. Zingano will need an impressive victory to remind just how devastating a threat she once was as a physically imposing 135-pound striker. Along with impressive stoppage wins over Raquel Pennington and Miesha Tate, Zingano remains the last fighter to defeat current bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes with a vicious TKO.