This weekend, the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nev., plays host to UFC 143, which will feature the eagerly-anticipated clash between main eventers Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit.
After almost three-plus years away from the Octagon following his loss to Junior Dos Santos at UFC 90, Fabricio Werdum makes his return in the co-main event, where he’ll lock horns with Roy Nelson.
Even though there is an array of talent on display that could end up winning fight of the night honors—Josh Koscheck and most notably, Renan Barão, whom at present is riding a 27-fight winning streak, the fight that will definitely steal the show has to be the interim welterweight title bout between Diaz and Condit.
Both fighters were on the cusp of vying for the coveted belt, currently held by the recuperating Georges St-Pierre, only to have their title aspirations dashed due to foreseen (Diaz) and unforeseen circumstances.
Now that an opportunity presents itself in the guise of the interim belt, it’s all to play for, and the stakes are massively high.
Diaz whose most recent victory was a near enough one-sided beatdown of “The Prodigy,” BJ Penn, relinquished his Strikeforce welterweight crown for pastures anew at the Zuffa-based promotion and with the sole intention of usurping St. Pierre as the division’s kingpin.
Conversely, Condit is coming off two knock out of the night wins against Dan Hardy and Dong Hyun Kim and has ambitions of his own regarding the title.
Both combatants possess great striking ability and some serious submissions skills to boot.
A loss for the Stockton native “The Natural-Born Killer,” Condit, will be a huge fail in every sense of the word—it will more or less have proven that neither fighter was a title contender in the first place.
With everything on the line, expect this matchup to be a war of attrition—a state of the art bagarre.
UFC 143 is scheduled for Feb. 4, 2012, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nev.
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