I understand why the UFC drew the line in the sand and canceled the Conor fight.
While reading Conor's statement, I noticed he is willing to show up at the New York appearance. It seems he really wants the 200 fight. I'm sure Lorenzo/Dana knew how much he wants it.
Since Dana said the 200 fight is off, the only way to save the fight is if they go good cop/bad cop and Lorenzo tells Conor the fight is back on if he makes it to New York for the promotional work.
In Conor's defense though, promotion is not just measured in hours. You could fly Ryan Bader and Demetrious Johnson around the world for 80 days doing press conferences in all major markets and going on morning shows, radio etc...
One Conor press conference in Vegas would create more interest and future PPV buys than 80 days of Bader, Johnson press.
So in Conor's defense, promotion can't really be measured in just hours and numbers of appearances but quality and effectiveness.
Totally agree. But I don't think this is binary.
I am sure the UFC and it's employees are under a lot of preassure to exceed UFC 100 and certainly exceed whatever the top revenue generating event of all time was. As you probably know, while it looks to the public as though this is the Dana and Lorenzo show, there are employees behind the scenes who are setting wheels in motion and spending money in order to acheive the KPIs they have been assigned. I can't imagine how though it is to keep it all together when eveything plays out publically.
Also gotta understand Conor.
If Conor win this fight at UFC 200 in a dominant fashion, people will kinda forget about his loss, seeing it as a fluke, and his super hype will come back, and he can go back to being mystic Mac that can beat Werdum with his eyes closed. A bit like GSP's loss to Serra isn't seen as a big deal since he avenged it pretty well.
On the other hand, if he lose again, he is clearly going to lose a lot of steam, and he's gonna be forced to go back to 145, which he clearly doesn't want to do.
So its really important for him to win this fight, and he's probably in super focus mode right now, and wants all the chances on his side.
Connor gets more publicity with one tweet than someone like Bader manages in a whole career... 
The UFC has hundreds of fighters to manage. It makes perfect sense to require the same minimum promotional requirements out of every one of those fighters. The contrary would be unmanageable.
Forssberg - The UFC has hundreds of fighters to manage. It makes perfect sense to require the same minimum promotional requirements out of every one of those fighters. The contrary would be unmanageable.
No really. A guy who has potential to earn your company billions over the course of their career may ask for special treatment.