Georges St. Pierre has not been an underdog in any of his fights since his second bout with Matt Hughes, a match which took place in 2006 and ended in a TKO win for him. That’s a stretch of 11 straight fights, and the trend shows no signs of letting up as long as he remains in his division.
In the early lines released on his UFC 158 fight with Nick Diaz, St-Pierre has been installed as a more than 4-to-1 favorite, with a -430 line on the gambling website 5Dimes.eu.
Diaz is a +310 underdog.
The fight is a long time in coming, as the two were originally scheduled to compete in October 2011, a bout that was scrapped after Diaz failed to live up to his media obligations and was pulled by UFC brass. Though Diaz went on to lose a No. 1 contenders fight against Carlos Condit and St-Pierre beat Condit, seemingly putting him on a collision course with middleweight champ Anderson Silva, St-Pierre threw a change-up, instead asking the UFC to give him his long sought-after match with Diaz.
St-Pierre will walk into the match riding a 10-fight win streak and a flashing a gaudy 23-2 record. He has successfully defended the welterweight title seven times during his second reign as champion.
Diaz, who is 26-8 with 1 no contest, will be fighting after 13 months away from the cage, a layoff brought about by a positive marijuana test in the wake of his loss to Condit. Prior to the defeat, he had forged an impressive 11-fight win streak, thrusting his name on to the short list of the division’s elite.
The UFC 158 bout is scheduled for March 16, 2013 at the Bell Centre in St-Pierre’s home town of Montreal.
Not surprisingly, St-Pierre is listed as a slight underdog in a matchup with the 185-pound kingpin Silva, a fight that has been proposed but will have to wait at least until after GSP-Diaz.