Speculation continues to mount surrounding a potential showdown between UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre and Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz at UFC 140 this December in Montreal. MMAWeekly even reported that the fight could be announced as early as this coming week for the event.
But is that what Zuffa actually wants, or is it just a product of the current lackluster situation within the welterweight division?
The UFC 127 main event between Jon Fitch and BJ Penn was supposed to essentially set the No. 1 contender for St-Pierre’s crown, but a draw and subsequent injuries prior to the rematch have put the kibosh on that.
When St-Pierre took care of business against Diaz’s training partner and friend Jake Shields at UFC 129, fans and experts alike began calling for the champion-versus-champion contest.
But why?
Sure, Nick Diaz has shown that he can beat up quality fighters like Paul Daley, but that is really the only top-25 welterweight who Diaz has fought since leaving the UFC in 2006 following his third straight loss.
Diaz is on a 10-fight win streak, but the competition just hasn’t been anywhere in the same atmosphere that it would have been if he were in the UFC. Is it that Nick Diaz is making them look that bad, or is it that he’s just a big fish in a small pond?
Whatever the case, this is simply the UFC’s only option at the moment for a logical opponent for their welterweight champion.
Dong Hyun Kim and Carlos Condit could make for quality opponents down the road, but they will be fighting one another at UFC 132 in July. Even then, there’s no guarantee that either fighter will be ready to fight the champion, especially by the end of 2011.
Jon Fitch and BJ Penn obviously still have a score to settle between one another.
Josh Koscheck and Jake Shields got dominated by St-Pierre in their opportunities.
There just isn’t anyone else other than Nick Diaz.
But given all of the negativity that surrounds Diaz, it’s just extremely hard to imagine that the world’s top mixed martial arts promotion wants him as its welterweight poster boy.
Diaz is abrupt and abrasive in interviews, he’s a rumored pothead, he isn’t a proven pay-per-view draw, he complains about his contract despite having signed it himself and he has even shown the desire to quit the sport of mixed martial arts entirely.
Imagine what a train wreck it’d be for the UFC if Diaz won the Welterweight Championship and then retired with the title to go into professional boxing. Or worse yet, what if he kept the title and boxed, only to get knocked out in embarrassing fashion by a mid-level opponent?
But realistically, Georges St-Pierre is a massive favorite in a fight against Nick Diaz. If Zuffa were to keep the UFC and Strikeforce titles separate, as rumored, imagine what a loss would do for Diaz and the Strikeforce title’s credibility. Especially if he gets lit up like almost all of St-Pierre’s recent opponents.
There would still be those who would defend Diaz as a top welterweight, but it’s hard to promote that when he has only beaten one guy (Daley) who is even arguably a top-10 welterweight in the past five years.
Zuffa might as well take the title and bury it in the desert because no one would care any longer.
The UFC is simply stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Nick Diaz is the only fighter they have that could realistically sell a big fight with Georges St-Pierre.
“GSP isn’t down to fight me,” Diaz told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani in an interview last year.
I’m not sure that’s the case, but perhaps St-Pierre realizes what other people seem to be neglecting—the only real positive outcome of a GSP-Diaz fight is a one-night pay per view payoff.
And there’s no guarantee that the buy-rate would be anything spectacular anyway.
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