If you ever wanted to tie things up, Matt Hughes, now is the time.
The UFC’s Welterweight division has been going nowhere fast for quite some time now. In the time since champ Georges St. Pierre was sidelined with an injury and lengthy recovery, we’ve controversially crowned a interim king who’d prefer to sit and wait for the champion to reemerge rather than fight the rest of the weight class’s top contenders, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what an interim champ is supposed to do.
Now, finally, it looks like frustrated fans have some good news: Carlos Condit has a date with “Rush” marked on his calendar. The bad news? It’s written in pencil and we still have to wait five months to see it.
As reported by Sherdog.com, UFC 154, slated to go down on November 17th in Montreal, will feature the ‘unification’ of the two Welterweight straps. St. Pierre last defended his title against Jake Shields at UFC 129 in April of 2011. Assuming that Georges recovers in time for this scrap, will nineteen months of ring rust make for an even more conservative performance from the champ?
Also on the card, Johny Hendricks will square off with Martin Kampmann for a title shot against the winner of the GSP-Condit bout. Expect Kampmann to handle the pressures of a number-one contender bout well; he fought for and won a shot at this very title just last weekend with his come-from-behind victory over Jake Ellenberger. Huh…didn’t see that one coming.
If things go to hell and GSP isn’t fully recovered in time for the bout, look for “The Hitman” to step up and face Condit for the interim title. “The Natural Born Killer” has previously stated that he’d like a chance to avenge his last loss to Kampmann in the event that GSP’s return is delayed.