UFC President Dana White expects the winner of Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit to meet Georges St-Pierre much sooner than he had originally expected.During a post-fight interview after UFC on FX 1, White said the UFC welterweight champion has made a succes…
UFC President Dana White expects the winner of Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit to meet Georges St-Pierre much sooner than he had originally expected.
During a post-fight interview after UFC on FX 1, White said the UFC welterweight champion has made a successful recovery following his knee surgery and is already preparing to make a return later this year.
“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.”
St-Pierre has never called out any opponents in the past, nor has he requested any specific opponents either, but White made it clear that the champion is preparing to meet Diaz following UFC 143.
It’s a side of the French-Canadian that neither fans nor White are used to seeing.
“He says, ‘I am praying every night when I go to bed that Nick Diaz wins this fight,'” White said. “I’ve never seen him so motivated to fight somebody and to beat somebody like Nick Diaz. He hates Nick Diaz.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:”GSP is boring.””GSP doesn’t have the killer instinct anymore.””GSP has become a lay-and-pray fighter.””GSP has been EXPOSED!”Do any of those statements sound familiar? Georges St-Pierre has been one of the …
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
“GSP is boring.”
“GSP doesn’t have the killer instinct anymore.”
“GSP has become a lay-and-pray fighter.”
“GSP has been EXPOSED!”
Do any of those statements sound familiar?
Georges St-Pierre has been one of the most dominant fighters the MMA history. He will no doubt be remembered as an all-time great, and will surely become a UFC Hall of Famer.
So why have fans become so critical of GSP lately?
Well, the truth is, it’s harder to make arguments against those criticisms than it is to defend him.
Fighters that GSP couldn’t finish, such as Jon Fitch, Jake Shields and Dan Hardy, have all been finished after their fight with GSP (hence the “GSP has been EXPOSED!” meme). And it certainly doesn’t help that he isn’t set to come back to the octagon until summer due to knee surgery.
However, these setbacks might not really be a bad thing after all. When he comes back, Georges St-Pierre will have something to prove.
He will have to prove that he is still the king of the welterweights and can put on a show while defending his crown. I believe that the GSP that we will see is the motivated fighter we saw in the Serra, Hughes and Penn rematches.
Georges’ comeback opponent will be the winner of Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz, and the fact that these two guys have a “finish or be finished” mentality supports my theory. Whoever wins, these are fighters who refuse to leave it to the judges, and GSP knows that.
GSP will prepare for that. And GSP will come with the same mentality on that fight and make a huge statement.
This will be a GSP with something to prove, and if Nick Diaz wins, he will be fighting a guy that he genuinely dislikes (maybe even hates, as Dana White said). This will be a GSP with a chip on his shoulder.
The Georges St-Pierre with a chip on his shoulder is the best one we’ve seen.
I believe in GSP. And if the healing goes well with his knee as reports have stated, I believe Georges St-Pierre will return with a vengeance and put on some exciting fights, and show why he has dominated his weight class as long as he has.
UFC 143 is just around the corner and it’s time to get excited.The event is capped off by a welterweight tilt featuring Nick Diaz against Carlos Condit.It’s the fight that neither man was expecting, but it’s suddenly become one of the more highly antic…
UFC 143 is just around the corner and it’s time to get excited.
The event is capped off by a welterweight tilt featuring Nick Diaz against Carlos Condit.
It’s the fight that neither man was expecting, but it’s suddenly become one of the more highly anticipated bouts in the mixed martial arts world.
Both men are revered for their intense style of fighting and will vie for the UFC’s interim title whilst champion Georges St-Pierre is sidelined mending from injury.
Before the dust had even settled from the organization’s debut on FX, the push began for UFC 143‘s headliner. The battle for the interim Welterweight belt is getting the full “Primetime” treatment with an in depth, behind-the-scenes look at Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. If you were too busy to catch the first installment of the series, bully for you. We’ve got the video above and some notes after the jump for the soft-headed.
Before the dust had even settled from the organization’s debut on FX, the push began for UFC 143‘s headliner. The battle for the interim Welterweight belt is getting the full “Primetime” treatment with an in depth, behind-the-scenes look at Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. If you were too busy to catch the first installment of the series, bully for you. We’ve got the video above and some notes after the jump for the soft-headed.
It looks like someone at the Zuffa office got a thesaurus for Christmas. “Enigmatic” is the early buzzword to describe Diaz and the sort of behavior that we’ve so lazily branded as “crazy”.
The narrator cites Lodi, California as Diaz’s home. Did the former Strikeforce champion finally take those community college courses on purchasing a house, move out of Stockton proper, and relocate to the “Zinfandel Capital of the World”? Don’t fret, readers—Lodi is still officially in the coveted 209 area code.
Having previously complained that no members of the media want to visit him and get to know him, how does Diaz welcome the all-access film crew to his gym? By literally shutting the door on them so he can meet with his coaches and train, of course.
“He doesn’t like the pretentiousness of what he has to do in the media, and he’d rather not do it. He doesn’t want himself opening up. He’s actually trying to close parts of himself, preparing himself for war. They’ll ask him to go do a press conference with his adversary, when in his mind he’s preparing himself to beat the hell out of that guy in the cage. And if you’re going to tell him to sit there and make nice with the guy, he has trouble coming to terms with that.” Cesar Gracie
“Nick understands something: the fight starts when you sign on dotted line. You see the staredowns and everything, and guys get a little crazy. You really can’t out-crazy Nick Diaz, you just can’t. He’s going to do things to cause a reaction from his opponent. It’s literally like he’s playing a high-power chess game.” Cesar Gracie, adding fuel to the rumors that the winner of Diaz-Condit will take on Garry Kasparov sometime in June.
“I don’t think he’s a bad guy at all. Is he trained to go and talk in front of the camera? No. He is not a speaker; he is not a poster boy; he is not a salesman. He just likes to do what we do. He likes to fight.” Val Ignatov, confirming our suspicions that Diaz hasn’t been formally groomed for dealing with the press.
“I think the things that brought Carlos to MMA are what brings a lot of young men to MMA. And that is you have this drive, this need, this testosterone, this anger, and it’s got to go somewhere.” Greg Jackson
“Nick definitely has holes in his game. He kind of makes up for that by just being tough, by being able to take a lot of punishment. The question is whether he’s going to be able to take as much punishment as I’m going to dish out.” Carlos Condit
“Carlos was never the fastest, he was never the strongest. He was never really the most technical. But what he had from a very, very young age is an incredible competitive spirit. He hated to lose.” Carlos Condit’s dad, who could easily fill in for “The Most Interesting Man in the World”.
“Back in the day, so this is 21 years ago when I had Nick in my class, it’s just the way he was. Nick was Nick, and Nick was going to do what he was going to do. And if he felt like doing that at that moment, that’s what he was going to do.” Diaz’s second grade teacher.
“I pulled the fire alarm in class. I don’t know why I did that. I was just standing by it, and I was screwing with it, and I knew it was a fire alarm or something. I was in second grade. I just didn’t really understand how a fire alarm worked, cause I would just kinda mess with it, and I kinda started, I didn’t mean to pull the fire alarm, but I was screwing with it too much. And I ended up pulling it, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I did not just do that!’ And I was the only one standing there. I’m like, ‘it went down’. I was like, she’s like, ‘you pulled it!’ And I was like, ‘oh.’ It was bad.” Diaz, reliving an event which, despite being a relatively common and innocent childhood prank, seems to have left deep emotional scars that haunt him till this day.
“It didn’t surprise me. I was like, ‘Oh, Nick!’ Since all of this I looked on YouTube and saw some videos of him because I haven’t seen him since he was a kid . He’s the exact same. He doesn’t make eye contact. He talks very slow and deliberate. He takes a breath between words. I mean when I saw him on that video he was the exact same kid.” Diaz’s second grade teacher, whose shocking refusal to use adverbs explains how Nick ended up fighting in a cage for a living.
“They had an issue with my attendance already, because I didn’t have good attendance anyways, because I didn’t want to show up at school and end up having to blast somebody. And you don’t know if you’re going to get shot or stabbed or jumped at school because that’s what happens to everybody else. It’s not like I’m, oh I’m paranoid or something. I’m not paranoid…” Nick Diaz, sounding just like every paranoid person we’ve ever known.
“Sometimes he gets upset. When you ask me why he gets upset, it’s his inability to express himself verbally. That’s why he’s a fighter. But when he gets in that ring he’s a poet. A poet in motion.” Steve Heath, Diaz’s last MMA coach, hitting the nail on the head.
We’re about two weeks away from UFC 143‘s interim welterweight title bout between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit, a fight that will mark Condit’s first Octagon appearance since he wrecked Dong Hyun Kim in July. In the ensuing months, Condit has had to remain focused while big opportunities appeared and disappeared with maddening regularity. Finally, his wait is over, and the Natural Born Killer will be able to test his skills against a man who many MMA pundits consider to be the #2 welterweight behind Georges St. Pierre. Our buddy Sal Mora caught up to Condit recently to get his thoughts about Nick Diaz and the challenges of balancing fighting with the rest of his life. Thanks so much to Carlos for the time; visit CampCondit.com for more. Some highlights from our interview…
On Diaz’s attitude and antics: “I’ve never met the guy, so honestly I don’t have much of an opinion. I think that we’re fortunate to be doing what we’re doing for a living. We get paid to train, we get paid to fight, and we get paid to do what we like to do. I think he’s got kind of a bad attitude when it comes to being grateful for the position he’s in. But other than that, like I said, I don’t really know the guy.”
On fighters who create a persona to attract more attention: “When I was younger, I felt like I wasn’t getting the notoriety or the exposure that some of these other guys were getting. But ultimately, when it came down to it, I just gotta be myself, and that’s carried me as far and got me as much exposure and notoriety as somebody acting a fool.”
We’re about two weeks away from UFC 143‘s interim welterweight title bout between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit, a fight that will mark Condit’s first Octagon appearance since he wrecked Dong Hyun Kim in July. In the ensuing months, Condit has had to remain focused while big opportunities appeared and disappeared with maddening regularity. Finally, his wait is over, and the Natural Born Killer will be able to test his skills against a man who many MMA pundits consider to be the #2 welterweight behind Georges St. Pierre. Our buddy Sal Mora caught up to Condit recently to get his thoughts about Nick Diaz and the challenges of balancing fighting with the rest of his life. Thanks so much to Carlos for the time; visit CampCondit.com for more. Some highlights from our interview…
On Diaz’s attitude and antics: “I’ve never met the guy, so honestly I don’t have much of an opinion. I think that we’re fortunate to be doing what we’re doing for a living. We get paid to train, we get paid to fight, and we get paid to do what we like to do. I think he’s got kind of a bad attitude when it comes to being grateful for the position he’s in. But other than that, like I said, I don’t really know the guy.”
On fighters who create a persona to attract more attention: ”When I was younger, I felt like I wasn’t getting the notoriety or the exposure that some of these other guys were getting. But ultimately, when it came down to it, I just gotta be myself, and that’s carried me as far and got me as much exposure and notoriety as somebody acting a fool.”
On the possibility of going five rounds for the first time in his career: ”My training camp’s been longer, just putting a lot more endurance training into it, and sparring more rounds. Even when I was fighting three-round fights, if we would go the distance or go close to the distance, I still felt like I had another couple rounds in me, so endurance has been one of my strong points and I’m not worried about a five-round fight.”
On New Mexico: “We don’t have a whole lot going on here, but we put out some of the best fighters in the world, and we have for decades. Being part of that tradition is something that I’m really proud of. I’m excited to go in and do my best, represent myself, represent my family, my team, my hometown.”
The upcoming welterweight tilt between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit at UFC 143 (February 4th, Las Vegas) is an exciting prospect for casual viewers and passionate fans alike. The match-up will answer no questions about Diaz or Condit’s ability to deal with the great wrestlers of the division — Diaz in fact hasn’t fought a real takedown artist in half a decade — but it promises to be a damn good tear-up. With Georges St. Pierre out of the fight game for a while and an interim title on the line it also provides just what UFC brass has likely been seeking: We will finally see an exciting striker at the top of the welterweight division.
The match is expected to stay on the feet and it is hoped the two men will “bang it out” until one is left standing. Assuming that neither fighter will come out with the plan of exposing the other’s takedown defense, this article examines the assets and deficits in each man’s bag of tricks from the standing position.
Nick Diaz’s Boxing
Much has been made of Nick Diaz’s pugilistic talent, and rightly so. His excellence while boxing against pure strikers over recent years almost excuses the lack of skilled wrestlers on his record in that time. Nick has taken on the likes of Paul Daley, Evangelista ‘Cyborg’ Santos, KJ Noons, BJ Penn, and Marius Zaromskis in striking contests and got the better of all of them through his ferocity, grit and unique style.
Diaz is a prolific volume puncher, having been known to crash the Compustrike computer by throwing over a hundred punches a round. His form is not attractive in that it rarely provides one-punch knockouts, but his straights are uncompromisingly straight, his hooks loop in behind his opponents guard and when he sets his feet he rips terrific punches to his opponents’ torso; unquestionably he is the poster boy for body-punching in the sport.
Nick often attacks almost side-on in an old fashioned boxing stance with his lead foot turned in, allowing him to turn his lead shoulder further towards his opponent and gain a couple more inches on his already considerable reach (a stylistic feature he shares with his younger brother Nate). Often taking a few substantial punches in the opening exchanges, the Diaz brothers seem near impossible to knock unconscious, yet every opponent they face seems to labor under the illusion that they will be the first to do so.
The upcoming welterweight tilt between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit at UFC 143 (February 4th, Las Vegas) is an exciting prospect for casual viewers and passionate fans alike. The match-up will answer no questions about Diaz or Condit’s ability to deal with the great wrestlers of the division — Diaz in fact hasn’t fought a real takedown artist in half a decade — but it promises to be a damn good tear-up. With Georges St. Pierre out of the fight game for a while and an interim title on the line it also provides just what UFC brass has likely been seeking: We will finally see an exciting striker at the top of the welterweight division.
The match is expected to stay on the feet and it is hoped the two men will “bang it out” until one is left standing. Assuming that neither fighter will come out with the plan of exposing the other’s takedown defense, this article examines the assets and deficits in each man’s bag of tricks from the standing position.
Nick Diaz’s Boxing
Much has been made of Nick Diaz’s pugilistic talent, and rightly so. His excellence while boxing against pure strikers over recent years almost excuses the lack of skilled wrestlers on his record in that time. Nick has taken on the likes of Paul Daley, Evangelista ‘Cyborg’ Santos, KJ Noons, BJ Penn, and Marius Zaromskis in striking contests and got the better of all of them through his ferocity, grit and unique style.
Diaz is a prolific volume puncher, having been known to crash the Compustrike computer by throwing over a hundred punches a round. His form is not attractive in that it rarely provides one-punch knockouts, but his straights are uncompromisingly straight, his hooks loop in behind his opponents guard and when he sets his feet he rips terrific punches to his opponents’ torso; unquestionably he is the poster boy for body-punching in the sport.
Nick often attacks almost side-on in an old fashioned boxing stance with his lead foot turned in, allowing him to turn his lead shoulder further towards his opponent and gain a couple more inches on his already considerable reach (a stylistic feature he shares with his younger brother Nate). Often taking a few substantial punches in the opening exchanges, the Diaz brothers seem near impossible to knock unconscious, yet every opponent they face seems to labor under the illusion that they will be the first to do so.
In addition to his brilliant jab and body work, Diaz also draws punches better than any fighter in the sport — sticking his chin out and raising his hands in the taunting posture that has become iconic in MMA fight photography. As soon as his opponents attempt to punch his head he slips or parries and counters with a salvo of his own blows. Factor in Nick’s habit of throwing multiple punches with the same hand consecutively (“doubling up” or “lever punching”), his ability to launch double-digit punch combinations, his range, and his aptitude for changing rapidly from offense to counter-punching, and Diaz’s boxing begins to look more and more like a minefield for Carlos Condit.
What may interest some fans of fight strategy is the question mark over Nick’s ability to take a body shot. The last man to beat him was the lightweight KJ Noons, who had Diaz breathing hard and attempting to fight from the “butt scoot” position through the use of body punches in the opening stanza of their first meeting. Unfortunately this fight was called off due to the cuts which had opened on Nick’s face at the end of the first round and Noons largely neglected body work when they fought for a second time at welterweight, so the question mark over Diaz’s abdomen remains.
Carlos Condit’s Muay Thai
Condit for his part lacks the boxing prowess of Diaz — often allowing his elbows to flare out when on guard or punching, exposing his body — which could be costly against Diaz, but he has crisp combinations and power to his shots. Being a long, lanky fighter, Condit throws his punches in what are best described as “looping straights,” similar to the way Tommy Hearns threw his right hand in an arc to use momentum.
Condit is also the owner of a solid left hook as he demonstrated against Dan Hardy, though it was his attacking of Hardy’s front knee, taking away Hardy’s stance and making him reluctant to be the aggressor which meant Condit could step into punching range and land his power. If Condit has used that win over Hardy to convince himself that his hands are world-class he may run into problems as he finds out just the same way Donald Cerrone did a few weeks back against Nate Diaz that good punching does not equate to good boxing.
Where Condit does excel however is in combining kicks and punches and in throwing his opponents off of their game with his unusual arsenal of techniques. Great grapplers such as Dong Hyun Kim have had trouble with Condit because of his ability to keep them at range and punish them when they step in. His reach is substantial to begin with but he often uses front kicks to establish an even greater distance between himself and his opponent — such as the one he threw at Kim before finishing him with a spectacular flying knee strike.
One of the interesting points coming into this fight is the weakness against low kicks that both the Diaz brothers have show in the past. Evangelista Santos, Hayato Sakurai and Paul Daley use kicks far less commonly than Condit and found great success against Nick Diaz with low kicks before mysteriously abandoning them to swing for Diaz’s head when he taunted them. Several weeks ago, Donald Cerrone, after being beaten savagely in the first round attempting to box with Nate Diaz, showed how effective kicks could be against the Diaz brothers, but also demonstrated the need to commit to them early when he gassed — just as Santos did against Nick Diaz.
The front-foot-turned-in stances that the brothers present mean that they are particularly vulnerable to kicks to the outside of the leg, rather than the inside. As southpaws, kicking the outside of their lead leg requires the opponent to use his lead leg, just as Fedor Emelianenko did to break Jeff Monson’s leg in November, and this would be a good strategy for Condit to follow. His push kick to the knee may also buckle Nick’s leg inward while preventing Nick from entering punching range, and it would be sensible for Condit to commit to this from the beginning in an attempt to slow Diaz down and limit engagements. When he does find himself in punching range it is in his interest to immediately attempt a Thai Plum or neck clinch in order to prevent Diaz’s combination punching and enable himself to land the clinch knees that have changed the course of so many of his matches.
The Bottom Line:
Carlos Condit is not going to be able to knock Nick Diaz out with pure punching any more than Paul Daley, Cyborg Santos, or Scott Smith could. However, if he combines his biting kicks (particularly his push kick to the knee) with punching combinations, and never attempts to engage Diaz in prolonged exchanges, instead choosing to tie him up or circle out, he may be able to strike his way to a decision or even stop Nick with a high kick or knees.
For Nick Diaz the game plan is clear — get close enough to volume punch against a taller opponent with an identical reach, a challenge he has never faced before. He must convince Condit to meet him in punching range (and his gamesmanship has proven to be up to the task before) or push Condit backwards to prevent him from kicking. Donald Cerrone had so much trouble kicking in the second and third rounds against Nate Diaz even though it was having an effect simply because it is impossible to kick with power while backing up, and eating any amount of punches is detrimental to a fighter’s discipline and wind. If Diaz can begin to back up Carlos Condit by the end of round one, we are unlikely to see Condit reverse the momentum of the fight in the second or third round.
UFC President Dana White expects the winner of Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit to meet Georges St-Pierre much sooner than he had originally expected.
