On every UFC fight card, there are fighters who stand to gain a lot. But at UFC 143, no one has more to gain than the unheralded Carlos Condit.
Condit is the proverbial dark horse in the welterweight division and not through any fault of his own.
He’s an exciting fighter who finishes yet, he’s not the one people want to see.
Instead, the people want to see the brash, fiery Nick Diaz take on his dramatic foil, the clean-cut, well-spoken, cordial (although some would say bland) UFC welterweight champion Georges St.Pierre.
So anticipated was this fight that a St.Pierre-Condit meeting was actually scrapped to allow St.Pierre-Diaz to happen.
UFC brass even insisted that Condit himself understood that this fight needed to happen so he supposedly stepped down of his own volition. The truth was later revealed; Condit did NOT give up a title shot just for the novelty of seeing a true “good guy vs. bad guy” fight at welterweight.
Thus, Condit is going into his fight with Diaz with a massive chip on his shoulder; he’s the guy who’s supposed to lose so that one of the biggest feuds in the sport can finally be resolved.
But what if this doesn’t happen? What if a wrench gets thrown into the machinations of matchmaker Joe Silva and Condit actually defeats Diaz?
He will have stolen the considerable amount of thunder that Diaz has acquired over the last few years and will have instantly made himself into a name.
Diaz vs. Condit is the most high-profile fight on the card and is the most important fight in terms of implications on MMA as a whole.
If Condit wins, he’ll go from being a WEC guy who got lucky a few times to being a legitimate contender for St.Pierre’s title.
And who knows, he may even win it.
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