Carlos Condit may have been deferential in his immediate post-fight speech at UFC Fight Night 67. But after washing off the blood of vanquished foe Thiago Alves, then soaking in the good vibes of another spectacular TKO win, Condit was far more definitive about what he wanted next for his UFC career.
“I want whoever has the title in a couple months,” Condit said at UFC Fight Night 67’s post-fight press conference. “Whether it’s Rory (MacDonald) or whether it’s Robbie Lawler, I want that guy.”
Condit (30-8) had been shelved since March 2014, when his fight against Tyron Woodley at UFC 171 ended prematurely with Condit suffering an ACL tear and partial meniscus tear in his right knee.
Despite the layoff, “The Natural Born Killer” preserved his No. 4 welterweight ranking into Saturday night, and when the time came, he put on a vintage performance for the crowd in Goiania, Brazil, badly battering Alves before disfiguring Alves’ nose with a nasty second-round salvo of elbows. Doctors ultimately called the fight between the second and third round, snapping Alves’ two-fight winning streak and awarding Condit his first victory since August 2013.
“I didn’t exactly know what happened, but I felt (his nose break) on my elbow,” Condit said. “I knew that he was hurt. I hurt him with the first rising elbow, then hurt him with the spinning back elbow. I could just feel the fight drained out of him after I hit him that first time.
“I think that my performance speaks for itself,” Condit added. “I came out and I got the finish against Thiago Alves, who’s one of the top strikers in the division.”
The victory means that Condit has now finished 28 of his 30 professional wins, an astounding mark made even more impressive considering the 31-year-old welterweight has been fighting against top-tier opposition for the majority of his professional career.
As for Alves, the Brazilian was absent from UFC Fight Night 67’s post-fight conference, though UFC Brazil executive Giovani Decker confirmed what many who witnessed the violence already speculated: that Alves suffered a severely broken nose during the contest.
“Thiago [Alves] went the to hospital,” Decker said through a translator. “He maybe broke his nose, probably broke his nose. The referee stopped the fight because he could practically not breathe anymore. We’re awaiting news to release.”