The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) made it official at last night's The Ultimate Fighter 16 Finale that Georges St. Pierre will defend his welterweight championship against Nick Diaz at UFC 158 on Sat., March 16, 2013, at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Questions, questions, questions.
Thankfully, "Rush" himself was in attendance in Las Vegas and did a full blown scrum with the media to clear up any and all concerns on his status going forward.
The three major points of contention:
- He's fighting Diaz not because it's a favor of Nick but because it's a favor to the UFC -- read: Dana White -- and all the fans. He admits that it's the biggest fight he can make and "it's time" to make it now. He justifies the bout by saying Diaz's loss to Carlos Condit was controversial enough that you can make a case that Diaz won and he deserves to be here. He just hopes Diaz doesn't do anything nuts before the fight actually gets to the cage. Either way, the time to do it is now, so he's going to get it done.
- As for what that means for Johny Hendricks, St. Pierre admits to feeling bad for the guy but what can he do? He's only one man who can only do one thing at a time. If Hendricks is good enough, he'll earn his shot eventually. Plus, St. Pierre believes Hendricks actually lost his close fight against Josh Koscheck back at UFC 143.
- Finally, as for Anderson Silva, "Rush" repeats all the same talking points you've heard from him before. The time just isn't right for the two to fight right now, mostly because St. Pierre has the aforementioned business to take care of at 170-pounds. Once he moves up to middleweight, he won't ever go back down in weight again, citing Roy Jones Jr. and his career arc as a prime example of why not to do it. He will go up for the fight, just not right now.
Thoughts on all this, Maniacs?
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