Nick Diaz at lightweight or middleweight?
That might happen if he defeats Carlos Condit at UFC 143 this weekend (Feb. 4, 2012) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The "Diaz vs. Condit" winner will be crowned the Interim Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight Champion and is expected to take on current UFC 170-pound champion, Georges St. Pierre, once he is recuperated from recent surgery.
Cesar Gracie says that should his star pupil defeat Condit in "Sin City," they will sit back and wait for St. Pierre to return from the injured reserves and not take another fight in the interim. If the wait is longer than expected, they may seek a fight in another division.
Gracie lays out the teams plans on the The MMA Hour, after the jump:
"I'm probably going to get in trouble by saying this, but, we are not taking another fight. There is only one way if we take another fight, I'm not going to get ahead of myself because Nick has not won yet (against Condit). Hypothetically, if we're fortunate and win this fight, I would advise Nick to not take another fight before the GSP fight unless it is at a different weight class. We are going to wait for the Georges St. Pierre fight."
A few seconds after Gracie's segment was over, Carlos Condit's manager, Malki Kawa was not too pleased with the comments and called in to express his displeasure:
"They are thinking they already won over there. At the end of the day, if people are riding Carlos Condit off it is a big mistake. He is coming to fight. He has not stopped training. If Condit wins the belt, we are going to fight and we are not going to wait around for anyone, not even Georges St. Pierre."
Cesar Gracie was respectful and answered a question hypothetically, to which Kawa acknowledged, so what's the beef?
After the much anticipated welterweight showdown between Nick Diaz and Georges St. Pierre, arguably the two top 170-pound fighters in the world, was scrapped twice before (UFC 137 and UFC 143), the Diaz camp, apparently, wants to take all measures to prevent from losing out on the dream match-up between the two once again.
Of course, not putting the cart before the horse, Gracie knows that Diaz first has to defeat ‘The Natural Born Killer" before they can look ahead to a blockbuster matchup against "Rush."
Condit, on the other hand, who also had his title match against St. Pierre scrapped due to injury to the welterweight champion at UFC 137, has no plans on waiting for anyone, according to his manager.
What do you say Maniacs, wise planning on the Diaz camp to hold out for Georges St. Pierre, should he be successful this weekend? If he indeed does take a fight at 155 or 185, who would be a good match up for the Stockton slugger?
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