I know you're fucking around, but the reason he took it is clear: da mooney. 196 was already promoted with his name attached to it so he knew it'd do around a million buys no matter what. That's millions of dollars given his contract. It would take a limb decapitation to get Conor to pull out of a fight that is this close to happening and waste an opportunity to make those millions. Worst thing that happens is he gets a loss, but that's fine--he already had two going into the Diaz fight.
Even if he loses his next two or even three and his drawing power is significantly weakened, he will probably have made over 20 million dollars at that point, so what does he care? Besides, I don't think he will be selling worse than 800k PPVs for the rest of his UFC career. They just need to manage him properly. If he gets a couple of losses in a row, feed him an easy fight against an opponent interesting to fans. People like a good narrative. The UFC can, for the most part, control that narrative through match-ups.
It's all about da mooney.
