Filed under: UFC, NewsNick Diaz will fight Carlos Condit for the UFC interim welterweight championship on February 4. But what happens to the interim champ after that? UFC President Dana White says he expects the interim champion to fight the reigning …
Nick Diaz will fight Carlos Condit for the UFC interim welterweight championship on February 4. But what happens to the interim champ after that? UFC President Dana White says he expects the interim champion to fight the reigning champion Georges St. Pierre sooner rather than later.
After UFC on FX 1 on Friday night, White told Ariel Helwani that St. Pierre is in better shape following surgery to repair a torn ACL than doctors expected, and that St. Pierre is already working out and getting himself prepared for a welterweight title unification fight in the summer. That’s a more optimistic timeline than previously reported: St. Pierre had indicated he didn’t think he’d be able to return to the Octagon until the fall.
“GSP’s rehab could not be going better,” White said. “He was texting me pictures of him kicking, doing everything. … I think he’s going to be back sooner than doctors anticipated.”
So it sounds like the Condit-Diaz winner will take on St. Pierre next, rather than defend the interim title while St. Pierre continues to rehabilitate. And while St. Pierre has no control over which man he fights next, White said St. Pierre is hoping it’s Diaz.
“He says, ‘I am praying every night when I go to bed that Nick Diaz wins this fight,'” White said. “I have never seen Georges St. Pierre hate somebody. He hates Nick Diaz. I’ve never seen him so motivated to fight somebody and to beat somebody like Nick Diaz.”
Filed under: UFC, MMA Fighting Exclusive, NewsUFC president Dana White has already stated that the new UFC 137 main event between BJ Penn and Nick Diaz will not be a five-round fight because, as he put it, “they haven’t trained for five rounds.”
UFC president Dana White has already stated that the new UFC 137 main event between BJ Penn and Nick Diaz will not be a five-round fight because, as he put it, “they haven’t trained for five rounds.”
However, Diaz’s manager and trainer Cesar Gracie wants the world to know that Diaz is ready and willing to go five rounds with “The Prodigy” on Oct. 29.
“If they can’t fight five rounds against each other, how are they going to fight five rounds against GSP?,” Gracie said to MMAFighting.com on Tuesday.
Gracie said he told White that Diaz wanted to change the fight to a five-rounder but had yet to hear back from Penn’s camp. After speaking to Gracie, both White and Penn could not be immediately reached for comment.
“Dana is good with it,” he said. “We’ve agreed to it. If BJ agrees to it, we’ll make it happen.”
Gracie added that there was no hesitation on Diaz’s part to agree to a five-round fight after hearing the news of GSP’s injury and subsequent removal from the card.
“These guys have to prove they are ready. These guys are fighters. BJ has always said he’s a warrior. … The old school days of MMA, back when it was NHB, they fought forever.
“Don’t be scared, homie. Let’s make it five rounds.”
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King” Mo Lawal was the first to say it at the Strikeforce pre-fight press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“I was hoping there would be more people out here, more media, more questions, but really I guess ya’ll don’t care about us that much,” Lawal said. In his eyes, Saturday’s Strikeforce event on Showtime looks to be a strong card that many fans will likely miss “because everybody’s worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend — I’m just being real.”
Looking around at the sparsely attended presser — as well as at the frenzy of online attention being paid to the Nick Diaz fiasco in the UFC — you have to admit that he has a point.
At least on paper, this may be one of the best Strikeforce cards in recent memory. But is anybody paying attention? And if not, is Zuffa, the parent company of both Strikeforce and the UFC, planning to do anything to change that?
“It’s disappointing,” said Josh Barnett, one of the four Grand Prix semifinalists on the card. “I’d really like it if we could get a little bit of back-up from the UFC on this. Just a blurb. I’ve talked to some of the fighters and the conversation has come up, why can’t Dana [White] do one little video blog, one little piece saying, please come watch these fights because they’re good fights? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t think they’re good fights.”
On some level, the drop-off is understandable. With Diaz bailing on this week’s UFC 137 press conference and being pulled from the title fight with Georges St. Pierre, UFC president Dana White has had his share of fires to put out.
Then again, the UFC did schedule several media events during the same week as the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but all of them were to promote a UFC fight card that’s still more than a month away. If you take that as an indicator of where Zuffa’s priorities lie, it’s not a good sign for Strikeforce.
As Lawal sees it, the lack of attention from both the media and Strikeforce’s parent company is an insult to the heavyweights in the Grand Prix, as well as to “Jacare” Souza and Luke Rockhold, who will vie for the Strikeforce middleweight title at the U.S. Bank Arena on Saturday night.
“[Rockhold]’s fighting for a title, you got two fights in the heavyweight tournament. …It’s not to me, but it’s a slap in the face to them,” Lawal said.
Of course, calling out the Zuffa brass right now seems like a risky proposition, since it’s still unclear what White and company plan to do with Strikeforce or its fighters. This is the same organization that just snatched a title shot away from Diaz for the kind of antics he used to regularly get away with in Strikeforce, after all.
Criticizing them could have its risks, though Lawal said he refuses to be swayed from calling it as he sees it, regardless of what happened to someone who simply failed to live up to his promotional responsibilities.
“I don’t give a [expletive],” he said. “I’m going to speak my mind. What are they going to do, say ‘Respect the organization or you’re going to be out forever?’ Get the [expletive] out of here with that [expletive]. I’m just keeping it real. Make sure you put that in there.”
Diaz no-showing a press conference, however, that’s a different story, Lawal said.
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s not like he was speaking his mind, saying ‘I think this press conference is dumb.’ He just didn’t show up. Now, speaking out and telling the truth is a different story than not doing something that helps the fight. That’s on Diaz. I think he’s a hell of a fighter, but like I said, here we are talking about Diaz instead of this event.”
As for Rockhold, he didn’t expect to get much press for his middleweight title fight to begin with, he said. As he put it, “People don’t know who I am. They’re going to find out, though.”
And sure, this weekend’s event was being buried in the headlines by Diaz and other UFC news, but he’s finding a way to stay optimistic.
“Yeah, it’s being overshadowed, but at least it’s overshadowed by Strikeforce guys,” Rockhold said. “Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem — at least we’re being overshadowed by our own people.”
But then, if this is all the attention even a stacked Strikeforce card can muster from fans and its own parent company, what does that say about the future for these fighters? If a former Strikeforce employee’s antics garner more attention than actual fights by the current employees, how much longer until there is no Strikeforce at all? And what then?
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but we might be looking at the end of something,” said Rockhold. “We’re going to have to perform and go out with a bang, and I think this is a good opportunity.”
As for Lawal, he just shrugged when asked what lay ahead for himself and the other fighters on the Strikeforce roster.
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King” Mo Lawal was the first to say it at the Strikeforce pre-fight press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“I was hoping there would be more people out here, more media, more questions, but really I guess ya’ll don’t care about us that much,” Lawal said. In his eyes, Saturday’s Strikeforce event on Showtime looks to be a strong card that many fans will likely miss “because everybody’s worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend — I’m just being real.”
Looking around at the sparsely attended presser — as well as at the frenzy of online attention being paid to the Nick Diaz fiasco in the UFC — you have to admit that he has a point.
At least on paper, this may be one of the best Strikeforce cards in recent memory. But is anybody paying attention? And if not, is Zuffa, the parent company of both Strikeforce and the UFC, planning to do anything to change that?
“It’s disappointing,” said Josh Barnett, one of the four Grand Prix semifinalists on the card. “I’d really like it if we could get a little bit of back-up from the UFC on this. Just a blurb. I’ve talked to some of the fighters and the conversation has come up, why can’t Dana [White] do one little video blog, one little piece saying, please come watch these fights because they’re good fights? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t think they’re good fights.”
On some level, the drop-off is understandable. With Diaz bailing on this week’s UFC 137 press conference and being pulled from the title fight with Georges St. Pierre, UFC president Dana White has had his share of fires to put out.
Then again, the UFC did schedule several media events during the same week as the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but all of them were to promote a UFC fight card that’s still more than a month away. If you take that as an indicator of where Zuffa’s priorities lie, it’s not a good sign for Strikeforce.
As Lawal sees it, the lack of attention from both the media and Strikeforce’s parent company is an insult to the heavyweights in the Grand Prix, as well as to “Jacare” Souza and Luke Rockhold, who will vie for the Strikeforce middleweight title at the U.S. Bank Arena on Saturday night.
“[Rockhold]’s fighting for a title, you got two fights in the heavyweight tournament. …It’s not to me, but it’s a slap in the face to them,” Lawal said.
Of course, calling out the Zuffa brass right now seems like a risky proposition, since it’s still unclear what White and company plan to do with Strikeforce or its fighters. This is the same organization that just snatched a title shot away from Diaz for the kind of antics he used to regularly get away with in Strikeforce, after all.
Criticizing them could have its risks, though Lawal said he refuses to be swayed from calling it as he sees it, regardless of what happened to someone who simply failed to live up to his promotional responsibilities.
“I don’t give a [expletive],” he said. “I’m going to speak my mind. What are they going to do, say ‘Respect the organization or you’re going to be out forever?’ Get the [expletive] out of here with that [expletive]. I’m just keeping it real. Make sure you put that in there.”
Diaz no-showing a press conference, however, that’s a different story, Lawal said.
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s not like he was speaking his mind, saying ‘I think this press conference is dumb.’ He just didn’t show up. Now, speaking out and telling the truth is a different story than not doing something that helps the fight. That’s on Diaz. I think he’s a hell of a fighter, but like I said, here we are talking about Diaz instead of this event.”
As for Rockhold, he didn’t expect to get much press for his middleweight title fight to begin with, he said. As he put it, “People don’t know who I am. They’re going to find out, though.”
And sure, this weekend’s event was being buried in the headlines by Diaz and other UFC news, but he’s finding a way to stay optimistic.
“Yeah, it’s being overshadowed, but at least it’s overshadowed by Strikeforce guys,” Rockhold said. “Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem — at least we’re being overshadowed by our own people.”
But then, if this is all the attention even a stacked Strikeforce card can muster from fans and its own parent company, what does that say about the future for these fighters? If a former Strikeforce employee’s antics garner more attention than actual fights by the current employees, how much longer until there is no Strikeforce at all? And what then?
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but we might be looking at the end of something,” said Rockhold. “We’re going to have to perform and go out with a bang, and I think this is a good opportunity.”
As for Lawal, he just shrugged when asked what lay ahead for himself and the other fighters on the Strikeforce roster.
It’s hard to imagine it now, but back when UFC president Dana White first used the phrase “business as usual” (many, many times) to describe what life would look like for Strikeforce after the Zuffa purchase, it wasn’t a punchline. He meant it. Sort of…
It’s hard to imagine it now, but back when UFC president Dana White first used the phrase “business as usual” (many, many times) to describe what life would look like for Strikeforce after the Zuffa purchase, it wasn’t a punchline. He meant it. Sort of. Maybe he even believed it, or at least he expected us to believe it.
That lasted about fifteen minutes.
Now, with the announcement that Strikeforce champ Nick Diaz will face Georges St. Pierre at UFC 137 this fall, we can finally put it to bed for good and forget we ever even considered taking it seriously. Snatching Strikeforce’s champ and signing him to a new contract so he can fight the UFC champ? Not business as usual. Not even close. And we should all be very, very glad.
After UFC 129, when White was asked whether a GSP-Diaz fight was even possible under the current contracts, the big bossman replied that he could probably do whatever he wanted to do with Diaz – if he wanted it badly enough.
Translation: if fans get vocal enough about wanting to see this fight and no other, we’ll move mountains to make it happen if we have to.
Fans were, so the UFC did. While a GSP-Anderson Silva superfight might get some people’s motors running, putting it off in order to allow St. Pierre a chance to cement his welterweight status once and for all is the move that makes more sense. GSP-Diaz is the fight that feels like it absolutely has to happen, and now it will.
Sadly, such is not always the case in combat sports.
For instance, remember back when Diaz versus “Mayhem” Miller seemed like the bout that made the most sense for Strikeforce? You know, since Miller was an MTV star who’d been jumped by Diaz and crew on live network television, and since the two couldn’t be in the same building without wanting to murder one another?
That fight would have promoted itself, but Strikeforce couldn’t make it happen. Between discrepancies over the weight the two would fight at, and CBS’ irrational hatred for Miller, nothing ever got done. It was a perfect moment, but the moment passed with nothing to show for it.
Or take Diaz’s recent boxing ultimatum. Unless the UFC gave them St. Pierre, Diaz’s manager, Cesar Gracie, told MMA Fighting in early May, his fighter was going to take his talents to the boxing ring for a bout with Jeff Lacy. Whether you think trading leather with the big gloves would have been a good idea or a horrible one for Diaz, in the end it was his decision to make. Strikeforce had given him a contract that allowed for it, so who was going to stop him?
Obviously, it doesn’t serve Zuffa’s interest to let Diaz get punched in the face by a washed-up former boxing champ while the UFC welterweight champ suffers from a dearth of compelling challengers, so it did what it had to do to talk him off the ledge. As Gracie put it in an interview with USA Today, the UFC “compensated [Diaz] for not boxing,” and in the end it got what it wanted.
More importantly, the fans got what they wanted. The cross-promotional champion-versus-champion fight that seemed so unrealistic that it was hardly even worth talking about a year ago was now a reality with a date and a venue. While we can’t pretend there are no down sides to having so much power in the MMA world consolidated under one Las Vegas roof, it’s moves like this that remind us of the considerable upsides.
If Strikeforce were still its own, independent organization, sure, that would make for better negotiating positions for fighters. It would give them more options, especially in the early or late stages of their careers (see also: Dan Henderson).
At the same time, then we’d probably never see Diaz fight St. Pierre. We’d probably never get a chance to find out who the best welterweight fighter in the world was. We’d just guess and speculate and argue, which is what we’ve been doing for the past few years, and – honestly? – I think we’ve gotten all the fun we’re going to get out of that exercise.
That was the old business as usual. This is the new one. And while it’s not without its potential pitfalls, so far there’s also a lot to like.
Filed under: UFC, FanHouse Exclusive, NewsAt UFC 130, Dana White didn’t sound very confident that he would be able to put together the much talked about Nick Diaz vs. Georges St-Pierre super-fight. However, on Wednesday afternoon, the UFC president ann…
At UFC 130, Dana White didn’t sound very confident that he would be able to put together the much talked about Nick Diaz vs. Georges St-Pierre super-fight. However, on Wednesday afternoon, the UFC president announced the fight was a done deal and would take place at UFC 137 on Oct. 29 in Las Vegas.
MMA Fighting spoke to Cesar Gracie, Diaz’s manager and trainer, about how the deal was completed and what this means for Diaz’s Strikeforce future.
A transcript of the conversation can be found below.
Ariel Helwani: How did this deal get done?
Cesar Gracie: We just sent the contract yesterday and it arrived in their office today.
Is Nick now a UFC fighter?
You know what? That’s an interesting question and they have not told me how they’re going to structure that.
So is his Strikeforce belt on the line?
I don’t know. I truly don’t. They haven’t told me if his belt is on the line. I don’t think so. This is not like that because if his belt was on the line that would make GSP the Strikeforce champion (if he wins). And then what? He’s going to fight someone from Strikeforce? I don’t think that’s happening. But then again, refer to Dana on that one because I truly don’t know.
Did Nick sign a one-fight deal with the UFC or a longer one?
We have a new deal. Multi-fight, multi-year contract with the UFC.
How many fights is the new contract for?
I can tell you it’s a multi-fight, multi-year contract. I can’t tell you how many fights.
So it sounds like he is a UFC fighter now.
Right, but the contract does give the option to fight in Strikeforce. So what that opens up is the potential for him to also fight in Strikeforce.
Over the weekend, Dana White referred to some issues which were stopping this fight from being made. Do you know how those were resolved?
There was a lot of misinformation — there were a lot of reports out there that weren’t true. Showtime, I don’t think was a problem, to be honest with you, at all. They don’t have a contract with Nick. Nick’s contract is strictly with Explosion [Strikeforce’s parent company prior to the Zuffa purchase]. It has never been a contract with Showtime. So the reports you heard were erroneous and false. Other than that, the hurdles were the [Jeff] Lacy thing, stuff like that. I don’t know if they were Strikeforce, and if they were, Nick signed a new contract that dissolved his old contract with Strikeforce.
Do you know if Showtime is getting any kind of percentage of the pay-per-view?
No idea.
Any idea why Vegas was chosen as the site of the fight?
There were two venues they were looking at: one was in Canada and one was in Vegas. We didn’t know which one it was going to be until today.
Would you have been OK with fighting in Canada?
I did tell them it would be better if we fought in Vegas, obviously, because then the belt wouldn’t have very much further to go once Nick gets it (laughs).
Do you think this marks the end of Nick’s run in Strikeforce?
Hopefully. If he’s back in Strikeforce, I would imagine that’s because he lost his next fight.
LAS VEGAS — MMA Fighting spoke to trainer Firas Zahabi on Thursday about the Miguel Torres vs. Demetrious Johnson fight at UFC 130 and Torres evolution as a fighter since joining Tristar. Zahabi also talked about the possibility of seeing Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz in the near future.
LAS VEGAS — MMA Fighting spoke to trainer Firas Zahabi on Thursday about the Miguel Torres vs. Demetrious Johnson fight at UFC 130 and Torres evolution as a fighter since joining Tristar. Zahabi also talked about the possibility of seeing Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz in the near future.
Nick Diaz will fight Carlos Condit for the UFC interim welterweight championship on February 4. But what happens to the interim champ after that? UFC President Dana White says he expects the interim champion to fight the reigning champion Georges St. Pierre sooner rather than later.
UFC
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King” 
It’s hard to imagine it now, but back when UFC president Dana White first used the phrase 
At UFC 130, 
LAS VEGAS — MMA Fighting spoke to trainer