Ever since he stopped Eddie Alvarez in November 2016, Conor McGregor has been the UFC's lightweight champion in name only. 

The 16-month exodus which followed for McGregor (21-3), including a TKO loss in his pro boxing debut to Floyd Mayweather last August, couldn't have come at a worse time for a division so overloaded with championship-ready talent. 

The sad, almost Shakespearean saga of Tony Ferguson-Khabib Nurmagomedov didn't help much either. 

Nurmagomedov pulled out of their interim title bout last March when he was hospitalized after a difficult weight cut. After Ferguson defeated Kevin Lee for the belt seven months later, UFC attempted to rebook Ferguson-Nurmagomedov this weekend for the fourth time in the main event of UFC 223 in Brooklyn until the cruelest of April Fools' Day irony played out on Sunday. Ferguson (23-3) suffered a torn knee ligament just days earlier at a TV studio in a freak accident that ruled him medically unclear to fight. 

The fallout of the injury looks like this: 

Nurmagomedov (25-0) will face 145-pound champion Max Holloway (19-3) on just six days' notice for the full lightweight title in the main event of Saturday's UFC 223 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. McGregor, per UFC president Dana White, will be stripped of his title the moment both fighters enter the cage. Adding insult to injury, Ferguson will also be stripped of his interim belt, White told ESPN on Sunday. (White also said McGregor was never considered to replace Ferguson, despite Nurmagomedov's cryptic tweet.)

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Despite McGregor's inactivity and the constant uncertainty of his return, his shadow still looms large over both the division and Saturday's title bout. It's unknown, of course, whether the brash Irishman will be in attendance (even with teammate Artem Lobov on the undercard) and no slam dunk, if he is, that he'll fulfill UFC's hopes of entering the Octagon to tease a fight against the winner. 

Had Ferguson and Nurmagomedov still been facing off on Saturday, it's fair to guess McGregor wouldn't have gone anywhere near the cage. That's not a commentary on whether he's afraid of either one, but more a business equation considering McGregor, who earned a reported $100 million against Mayweather, has more leverage to call his own shots at the moment than any UFC fighter has ever known.

Should Nurmagomedov capture UFC gold in dominant fashion in Brooklyn, one could make the case that McGregor might be done with the title picture at 155 pounds, simply because UFC might not be able to pay him enough to justify the danger. A result like that could send McGregor into a full-time pursuit of big-money showcases against the likes of Nate Diaz and Georges St-Pierre, if not some form of a carnival rematch (boxing or mixed rules) against Mayweather.

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Yet the wild card in this case, and the only chance we just might see McGregor call out Saturday's winner, could come in the form of a Holloway win. The reason is because Holloway would now hold, along with the two title belts McGregor was stripped of, the only thing that might mean more to McGregor than money: his legacy as the only fighter to hold championships in two UFC weight divisions simultaneously. 

The fact that McGregor is the last person to defeat Holloway doesn't hurt matters, even if the Hawaiian was just 21 at the time. Neither does the fact that Holloway, should he pull the upset, would be catapulted so quickly to stardom that the money needed to make a McGregor fight might soon be there. 

But the odds, in this case, certainly aren't in Holloway's favor, even with his higher placement on most pound-for-pound rankings than Ferguson or Nurmagomedov. Holloway, who was installed as a +375 underdog, is moving up in weight on less than a week's notice against one of the most dangerous fighters in the sport. He's also just over a month removed from an ankle injury that pulled him from a March 3 title defense against Frankie Edgar. 

Predicting McGregor's next move hasn't been easy for fans, critics or even the UFC alike. While his name will certainly be mentioned plenty on Saturday as he's relieved of yet another title he never defended, here's to hoping we also see his face. 

It's the least McGregor could do after hijacking a division that has become officially cursed since the moment he became king.