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Could tension be brewing at the Greg Jackson camp ... again?
After Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) official's pulled the old switcharoo on Carlos Condit by taking away his title shot against welterweight champion, Georges St. Pierre, immediately after Nick Diaz defeated B.J. Penn this weekend, Malki Kawa, Condit's manager, took to the Twitter boards to express his unhappiness with the decision.
In case you missed it:
"Last I checked, 'Carlos is the harder fight.' So I guess now he'll fight Nick. Wasn't our choice and def not happy. BUT It is what it is, and we'll figure some things out. In the mean time, I'm sure @danawhite Is going to make it worth his while ;)."
Kawa, who represents many of today's top mixed martial arts (MMA) stars, elaborated a bit more today on "The MMA Hour:"
"I could understand them coming to us like that, the issue with the whole 'he decided to step aside,' obviously, that wasn't the case. There was no just stepping aside. There was a little bit more than that. It's going to take more than that. I think we're way more upset with Georges and the way Georges handled it than we are with the way Dana presented it or anything like that. Are we pissed off about it? Absolutely, but it's not like I've never been on other end of stick where I put one of my fighters ahead of someone else and another guy got shafted or screwed over. It's just business, it's not personal. It's nothing personal with Georges. Are we upset with him? Absolutely."
Kawa went on to say that Condit -- who wept upon initially learning that he was granted a UFC title shot -- was very heart broken having to bow out of the fight with St. Pierre. However, not all is lost, as the power agent shed some light on a few possible opponents for his client that the promotion offered him, possibly on the same card as Nick Diaz vs. Georges St. Pierre on Super bowl weekend:
"Possibly a curly haired blond."
One would assume he was referring to none other than UFC welterweight Josh Koscheck. When asked if a fight with Jake Ellenberger -- a person who Condit has already defeated -- appealed to them, Kawa said it's all about what benefits his client the most:
"It's more about whoever brings the most to the table, we want to make it a big-money fight. Whoever that is. Make it a big-money fight. A No. 1 contender, possibly make it a five-rounder if we could. And somebody who win, lose, or draw, we can take something from it."
Though St. Pierre's home camp is with Firas Zihabi at TriStar gym in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the 170-pound kingpin splits his training time with Jacksons' camp out of Albuquerque, N.M., which is the home of "The Natural Born Killer." Both Jackson-trained fighters had kept it cordial leading up to their highly anticipated fight that was scheduled for UFC 137.
Whether this will cause increased tension between the welterweights remains to be seen. For what it's worth, head trainer Greg Jackson previously stated that he would not train either fighter prior to UFC 137.
Now that his dance card is empty, who would you like to see Condit face off against in order to reclaim his title shot?