UFC President Dana White offered some questionable arguments when making the case against stripping Conor McGregor of his UFC lightweight title. But after yet another contender solidified his case at UFC 219, has the 155-pound division finally reached a crucial crossroads? Retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes to discuss.

Downes: Ben, Khabib Nurmagomedov had a dominant win over Edson Barboza at UFC 219 this weekend. You know what that means? Time to talk about Conor McGregor!

Earlier this week Dana White was asked about McGregor’s lack of title defenses (he hasn’t defended the lightweight title since winning it from Eddie Alvarez in November 2016) and if the UFC should strip McGregor of the 155-pound championship. You can read more of his comments to ESPN here, but the main takeaway is that if you think McGregor should lose his belt, you’re just a “hater.”

We all know you drink haterade like it’s fancy single malt whiskey, but I feel the need to ask you anyway. Should the UFC have stripped McGregor of his lightweight title by now? And how do you rebut White’s defense that it’s “some (expletive) exaggeration in saying the guy’s never defended a title.” Go ahead. Commence with your exaggerations.

Fowlkes: It’s not so much an exaggeration as it is just a statement of fact. McGregor has won two UFC titles and thus far defended neither of them. Full stop. The end. I’m not saying we can’t consider the context of that information, but what I’m not going to do is stand around and argue over easily verifiable facts.

The best argument in favor of the UFC stripping McGregor of the lightweight title is one of consistency, which has never been very important to the UFC. Still, you know if this were anyone else refusing to defend a UFC belt for this long, he’d be stripped already.

Remember Germaine de Randamie? She made it about four months with the UFC women’s featherweight title before the UFC took it away upon the first sign that she wasn’t willing to fight Cris Cyborg.

The difference there was that de Randamie didn’t feel like the champ, even with the belt. You could strip her of the title, give it to Cyborg with the very next fight, and people would accept that the person with the belt was really the division’s best. You can’t really do that so easily at lightweight.

Of course, the legitimacy of the belt is clearly not the UFC’s primary concern. The reason it won’t strip McGregor is because no one else brings in anywhere near as much money as he does.

This is purely a financial decision. But White can’t bring himself to admit that, so instead he sits there and lies to us, either because he’s too old a dog to learn any new tricks or because he thinks he can say anything he wants without consequence, which may or may not be true.

But does anyone really want to see McGregor stripped of the title? What they want is to see him defend the damn belt, and soon. They want to see him fight either Tony Ferguson or Nurmagomedov, since, in his absence, both have staked solid claims to the throne. It’s probably the most interesting division in the UFC – in all of MMA – and the champ is an absentee landlord.

That’s the problem that I think everyone, including the UFC, would like to solve in one way or another. So how do we do it?

Downes: How do we do it? You convince a man with over $100 million in the bank that it’s worth fighting in a cage again. While Floyd Mayweather has shown that even that amount of money can’t support certain lifestyles, the UFC doesn’t have enough cash to interest McGregor. If things really get rough, he could sell his naming rights to pool noodles or alligator shoes and eke out a living.

The other tried-and-true UFC method to convince fighters to compete when they don’t want to is public shaming. I think we all know that’s unlikely to work. The only thing McGregor has in excess other than money is a sense of self-worth. Some fighters like to test themselves and beat people up. While I’m sure McGregor enjoys competing, he doesn’t exactly embody bushido. Fighting was a means to an end for him.

I suppose I agree that the UFC’s thinking is financial (because every decision is financial), but I don’t understand it. McGregor boxed Mayweather and it was the biggest pay-per-view event in years. He feuded with Nate Diaz over nothing, and fans loved it. You’re telling me he needs a belt to be relevant? Any time McGregor fights, it’s an event. He doesn’t need a title.

I think we need to read between the lines. In that ESPN interview, White mentions how McGregor didn’t want to even drop the featherweight title when he moved up. I think this is a ploy to keep McGregor (relatively) happy. We talk about how the UFC doesn’t have a lot of bankable stars, so it has to stay on good terms with the big guy.

Other than White lying/doing his own bit of exaggeration, what’s the harm? We’ve talked a number of times this year about how UFC titles just don’t mean much anymore. So what if McGregor holds on to a belt he hasn’t defended? The division continues to move on and nobody except McGregor fanboys thinks any differently about Ferguson. Aren’t you exaggerating a little extra outrage for no reason?

Fowlkes: Of course the UFC is concerned with keeping McGregor happy. There’s no guarantee that he’ll ever fight in MMA again, but stripping his title would definitely alienate him, and you know he’s not just going to sit there and take it without some kind of response. White figures that if he plays nice and covers for McGregor, at least there’s a chance of a return. Here’s a fighter he can’t bully, so instead he tries to bully the facts in an effort to convince us that down is up and no is yes.

Still, I’m not as willing as you are to go full nihilist here. Maybe UFC titles don’t mean what they used to, but the core idea in this sport is still the same. It’s a bunch of people trying to determine who the best is via a series of cage fights. That’s a big part of what’s fun about it. It’s one of the main things we still love to argue about.

You take that concept away, it’s just violence for the sake of violence. Which, hey, I’m not saying that’s without some appeal, but it’s not the same.

For instance, what makes lightweight so fun right now? One thing: the number of really good fighters who, if given the chance, might prove to be the best. And, sure, Ferguson and Nurmagomedov could fight each other and that would be awesome and fun. But when that’s over, you know we’ll just go back to the same old McGregor callouts. Defend or vacate. So on and so forth.

It’s an untenable situation, is my point. Eventually, a decision must be made. Either McGregor gets an offer he can’t refuse, or he doesn’t and we all have to move on. But pretending like all this is totally fine is just kidding yourself. And even the most experienced liar has to be careful not to start believing his own crap.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who has also written for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.

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