UFC 132: Urijah Faber vs. Dominick Cruz this past Saturday night was the culmination of back-to-back events put on by the UFC or Strikeforce over the last six weeks, and what a finale it was to a great series of fights.
There wasn’t a boring fight on the main card as every fighter came to put on a show. Three out of the five fights ended in finishes.
Despite Cruz winning a decision over Faber in a fight for the bantamweight title, it was a back-and-forth affair that deservedly earned “Fight of the Night” honors.
Out of the three finishes—Tito Ortiz fending off retirement with a first-round guillotine choke of Ryan Bader, Chris Leben knocking Pride legend Wanderlei Silva into what will probably be retirement and Carlos Condit‘s flying knee knockout of previously undefeated welterweight Dong Hyun Kim—the only finish that launched a fighter into title-shot territory was Condit’s.
The former WEC welterweight champion before the division was collapsed into the UFC has been fighting to prove his worth in a division that has some of the best fighters in the world, including the current welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
Condit’s rise in the UFC welterweight division had a slow start.
At the time of his UFC debut, a split-decision loss to Martin Kampmann and split-decision victory over Jake Ellenberger was nothing to write home about—certainly not the performances one would expect from a champion.
However, hindsight tells us that Condit’s win over Ellenberger might have been worth what people originally thought. Since the loss, Ellenberger has won four straight and finished three fights in decisive fashion; he is regarded as one of the UFC’s rising stars at 170 pounds and this speaks volumes about how good Condit really is.
After the Ellenberger fight, Condit really launched himself forward in the division with three stellar performances.
Against another rising star in Canadian Rory MacDonald, Condit was beaten decisively throughout the fight. In the dying seconds of the third round he miraculously stole the fight from MacDonald via technical knockout.
Next up was former No. 1 contender, Dan Hardy. A first-round knockout using a left hook (something Hardy is known for) is what Condit served up for the Brit.
Geoges St-Pierre defended his title against Hardy, but took all five rounds and the judges’ decision to do it.
Finally, there was last night’s fight against Kim. With a mixed martial arts record of 14-0 and one no-contest, along with black belts in Judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Kim was highly regarded as an up-and-comer until meeting Condit last night.
Kim, known for utilizing his superior grappling to grind his opponents, out-utilized the same game plan from the get-go against Condit last night. Unfortunately for Kim, Condit was able to get up from the bottom and, for the third time in a row, finish an opponent in spectacular fashion, this time with a flying knee that buckled Kim, followed by vicious ground-and-pound work forcing the referee to step in.
Even before last night’s victory Condit was in the title mix, but the spectacular finish over Kim really places Condit in the forefront of the welterweight division.
Condit was vocal in asking for his title shot shortly after his arm was raised.
“How about it, Joe Silva? Am I ready for a title shot or what?” Those were the words Condit had for UFC matchmaker Joe Silva during the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan.
Obviously Condit looks ready for a title shot, but the question is when and how long will he have to wait?
Nick Diaz relinquished his Strikeforce welterweight belt in order to fight Georges St-Pierre for the UFC title and that will only be happening on Halloween weekend at UFC 137.
This would mean that Condit will most likely have to wait until March 2012 for his chance at the title, which is a long wait for any fighter, especially for Condit who was already inactive since October of last year due to injury.
Condit is now faced with a decision that two fighters in different divisions had to face recently: whether he should wait for his title shot or take another fight in between.
Rashad Evans chose to wait for Mauricio Rua to heal up from knee surgery for his title shot, and just weeks before his shot was supposed to come he too suffered a knee injury that forced him out of the fight.
Evans pulling out resulted in his teammate Jon Jones getting the shot and taking the title from Rua. From there bad blood boiled and Evans left his camp to get away from Jones and prepare for a fight with his former teammate.
Jones pulled out of the fight with Evans due to a hand injury and finally Evans had to take a dangerous fight against light heavyweight up-and-comer Phil Davis.
The funniest thing to come out of this mess was that Evans’ last fight and win, which came in May 2010, was over Quinton Jackson who oddly enough is slated to fight for the title against Jones at UFC 135 this September.
On the other hand, former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis was slated to face off against the winner of Frankie Edgar versus Gray Maynard to unify the titles. Unfortunately Edgar and Maynard fought to a draw and were scheduled for a rematch until both fighters suffered injuries delaying the rematch.
Pettis chose to fight as opposed to waiting and much to his dismay he lost against Clay Guida, which was supposed to hold him over until the title shot against Mayanard or Edgar.
As one can see, Condit’s decision is a tough one because both guys who were in similar situations made the opposite choices and both guys were burned by their decisions.
At the post-fight press conference, Condit spoke a bit to the fact that his shot might not be for a while due to the timing.
“I do want to fight again in 2011. I know the time frame may not work out for me to get the next (title) shot, but I want to fight again before the end of the year,” Condit told the press.
Condit seems torn between waiting for the title shot and wanting to stay active, but it appears as if he is leaning more toward staying active.
If the welterweight does decide to stay active there is really only one fight that makes sense: Jon Fitch.
The problem with the Fitch fight is that Fitch and BJ Penn are supposed to have a rematch following their majority draw at UFC 127 this past February.
Unfortunately, both fighters suffered injuries and were forced to withdraw their rematch, which was supposed to happen last night at UFC 132.
Of course both Penn and Fitch still want a rematch in the hopes that it gives them their shot at welterweight gold. However, if the UFC brass is saying Condit is the next guy in line, Fitch might have second thoughts about fighting Penn again if it means that a win over Condit will give him that shot.
Fitch, 13-1-1 in the UFC, with the lone loss being a title fight against St-Pierre, questions and is quite vocal about why he hasn’t received another shot after going 5-0-1 since the loss. The main reason is the fact that he has a grinding style that wears opponents out and wins fights, but never results in a finish.
Fitch has said that he would be ready to fight in San Jose for UFC 138, which would work out perfectly for Condit or Fitch, as St-Pierre and Diaz fight just a few weeks before.
Fitch would be the best matchup for Condit in the sense that it would prepare him well for St-Pierre or Diaz. Fitch is a well-rounded fighter who has the skill set to beat the best in the division, something Condit needs to be able to do should he want to topple St-Pierre or Diaz.
Fitch’s style is particularly similar to current champion St-Pierre’s and if Condit can beat Fitch it says a lot about the kind of fight he would be able to bring against St-Pierre, should St-Pierre beat Diaz in October.
Condit showed in the Kim fight that, despite not being the best wrestler, he is active enough to search for submissions, escapes and reversals while he is on his back and he is skilled enough to get them against experienced grapplers, something that is of the utmost importance against guys like St-Pierre or Diaz.
Spectacular knockouts over guys like Dan Hardy, Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald show that he knows what he is doing in the stand-up, and any fighter that can perform well no matter where the fight goes is the kind of fighter the welterweight championship needs, whether it is against St-Pierre or Diaz.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/Leon_Horne
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