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It never matters to Roy Nelson who UFC officials offer as an opponent. He always accepts.

Nelson will fight any heavyweight, anywhere, anytime. He is a throwback: the type who loves mixing it up. He also enjoys putting on exciting fights, which was evident Saturday night in Newark, N.J.

At UFC 159, Nelson delivered a performance fight fans will remember for a long time -- knocking out Cheick Kongo in the first round with a beautifully placed overhand right.

Kongo immediately went down and was unconscious. Nelson delivered one more punch for good measure, but he didn’t throw it with much force. He didn’t want Kongo getting back to his feet, but was compassionate enough to consider the serious damage that might have been done with a very powerful punch.

That’s Nelson, always thinking of others, be it the fighters or fans -- especially fans. Whenever he steps in the cage, Nelson wants his fans to be entertained, which is exactly what he did at Prudential Center.

And the sellout crowd of 15,227 showed Nelson its appreciation by giving him the evening’s loudest ovation. Nelson responded to the cheers by jumping atop the Octagon at several different locations to directly address fans in every section of the arena.

It was a great night for Nelson, but the fun wasn’t quite over with his victory.

In addition to his pleasing fight, Nelson also wants a shot at the UFC heavyweight title. And he figured the best way to put his name in the title conversation was with an impressive performance against Kongo.

Nelson came through big time, which got the attention UFC president Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva.

“Me and Joe never talk about next fights on nights of the fights, but we talked tonight,” White said Saturday night. “And we like Roy Nelson versus [Daniel] Cormier, or Roy Nelson, if Mark Hunt wins [at UFC 160], Roy and Mark.

“If [Roy] wants to get close to the title, those are the guys he has to fight. I know he wants a title shot, and I honestly think he deserves to get a fight with one of the top guys to get him closer to that or get him a title shot.”

The words were music to Nelson’s ears. He had a huge smile on his face each time White made reference to his immediate fighting future. Now he’s at least one bout from realizing his goal of fighting for the UFC heavyweight title.

But here’s the kicker: If Nelson is serious about landing his title shot sooner rather than later -- and sooner is always better, because title shots are very hard to come by -- he must do whatever is necessary to make certain that Cormier is his next opponent. A victory over Cormier, especially if it is impressive, will place him among the top three contenders in the heavyweight rankings. No doubt about it.

Both ESPN.com and UFC.com currently rank Cormier as the No. 2 heavyweight contender, right behind former titleholder Junior dos Santos, who faces Hunt at UFC 160 on May 25 in Las Vegas.

“

... if he gets past [Junior dos Santos], that would be great. If he doesn't, I'd still fight Mark Hunt because the fans want to see that one.

” -- Roy Nelson

An upset of dos Santos won’t catapult Hunt into the top contender spot. Hunt will not surpass Cormier in the rankings, nor is he likely to jump ahead of Alistair Overeem or Fabricio Werdum.

As of Monday, Nelson was ahead of Hunt in the UFC.com heavyweight rankings -- Nos. 6 and 9, respectively. Hunt could move ahead of Nelson with an upset of dos Santos, making a showdown between them more intriguing.

The winner of that fight, however, will have a hard sell convincing UFC officials he deserves an immediate title shot. But a win over Cormier and Nelson is right there knocking at the champion’s door.

“I want to fight the best in the world. And fighting Daniel, you know, he’s an Olympian, I’d like to welcome him to UFC,” Nelson said after his win Saturday night. “As for Mark Hunt, if he gets past [dos Santos] that would be great. If he doesn’t, I’d still fight Mark Hunt because the fans want to see that one.

“I’m all about making everybody happy.”

It’s very noble of Nelson to consider the fans, but it would be a mistake on his part to bypass a shot at Cormier. The risk is greater, but so is the reward. And knowledgeable fight fans would be more interested in witnessing this high-profile bout than a slugfest between him and Hunt.

Besides, Cormier has already endorsed the idea of facing Nelson.

“Hey Dana you’re right, Roy Nelson and I would be a damn good fight,” Cormier said on Twitter after hearing White’s fight proposal. “How about it [Roy]?”

White and Silva are likely to put the ball in Nelson’s court in the next few weeks. And it is in Nelson’s best interest not to drop it.

NEWARK, N.J. -- In a night of strange happenings, perhaps the strangest was saved for last.

As most thought he would, Jon Jones (18-1) defended his light heavyweight title against Chael Sonnen at UFC 159 at Newark's Prudential Center, yet he did it in a prideful way -- by outwrestling the wrestler. Coming into the fight, the one bit of intrigue for the heavy favorite Jones was how he would respond to Sonnen’s constant pressure.

Instead, the 25-year old Jones took Sonnen down in the first 10 seconds of the fight, and repeated the process a couple more times before finishing him via TKO with 27 seconds left.

It was a dominant performance by the champion, who tied Tito Ortiz’s record for most 205-pound title defenses at five.

Then the revelation: In his post-fight interview with UFC commentator Joe Rogan, Jones made a gruesome discovery -- his toe appeared broken.

Jones’ left foot was shown on the arean's Jumbotron and it dawned on him and the crowd at the same time that he had a mangled toe. It seemed that Jones broke the toe while pushing off the mat on a takedown attempt.

“I felt it pop,” he told ESPN.com afterward. “But I didn’t let it slow me down.”

Just how long he’ll be out, and what this means for the 205-pound division, remains to be seen. Coming into the fight, UFC president Dana White had mentioned that heavyweight contender Daniel Cormier might be a possibility for an automatic title shot in the lower weight class. And then there was Lyoto Machida, who was in attendance on Saturday night. Machida has also been pinky sworn by White to get a rematch against Jones. But with the injury, everything goes back up in the air.

And as far as Jones is concerned, Cormier isn’t on his mind yet.

“I don’t want to give Daniel Cormier any hype right now,” he said during a postfight interview with MMA Live. “That guy ... I won’t even make a comment.”

As for Sonnen, who coached opposite Jones on "The Ultimate Fighter" and took a lot of flak for not having the credentials to get the shot to begin with, he was gracious in defeat.

“He’s an excellent fighter, I have no problem with the stoppage,” he said. “[Jones] is very powerful. When he went for the kill, he never stopped. I thought I was all right, but he is the better fighter.”

Sonnen intimated that he may contemplate retiring now that it appeared that he had his last shot at winning a title. But he wasn’t definitive on that. Coming in, the thought was that Sonnen’s only chance against Jones was to use his wrestling to put Jones on his back, like he did with middleweight champion Anderson Silva at UFC 117.

Instead, Jones turned the tables out of defiance.

“[Coach] Greg Jackson, he always teaches me to have a philosophy of ‘screw them,’” Jones said. “If people want to say you can’t do something, you say, ‘screw them.’ That’s the way I looked at the critics. Screw you guys.

“My wrestling coach told me that that they’re going to be watching, they want to see who’s the better wrestler, and everyone thinks that you can’t wrestle. I said, screw them. Let me show you guys I can wrestle. I take wrestling very seriously.”

On a night where two bouts ended in technical decisions for accidental eye-pokes, and another ended when Yancy Medeiros dislocated his thumb against Rustam Khabilov, Jones’ injury felt par for the course. It was yet another “what if” for Sonnen. Though the Jones fight was the polar opposite of Sonnen’s first fight with Anderson Silva, he once again came close to becoming the champion.

Had Sonnen survived the first round, it’s possible that Jones wouldn’t have been able to continue with the injury to his foot. In that case, Sonnen would have backed his way into a title. That would have been different from the Silva fight -- which he dominated for 4½ rounds before getting caught in a triangle/armbar with under two minutes left -- even if the nearness to the gold was the same.

For as close as that might have seemed, it was a million miles away. Jones was his usual dominant self, and he showed he can beat opponents at their own game. UFC 159’s main event was never in doubt. The only thing that is in doubt becomes what exactly happens next.

“We’ll see what happens with Jones’ [injury], and we’ll go from there,” Dana White said. But, before letting it go at that, he also dropped a bomb in the post-fight news conference. He said that Anderson Silva called -- and was asking for a fight. Was he calling out Jon Jones?

White left it for everyone to speculate, but added that it doesn't really matter right now, with Silva slated to fight Chris Weidman at UFC 162.

How’s that for timing?

NEW YORK -- The decision to lift heavyweight Matt Mitrione’s suspension in less than three weeks has raised many eyebrows, so promotion president Dana White didn’t hesitate to answer questions Thursday about the matter during UFC 159 media day at Madison Square Garden.

“They [fighters] can be suspended for as long as we want them to be,” White said. “He was suspended for three weeks, but what does that really mean?

“In other sports a suspension means you lose games. He’s not fighting right now anyway. We didn’t suspend him for three fights, two fights. He was fined and put on suspension.

“Suspension meant we were going to look into this thing; we were going to talk to him.”

White then made it clear he agrees with Mitrione that transgender female mixed martial artist Fallon Fox should not be allowed to fight women. White doesn’t, however, embrace the harsh wording Mitrione used to make his point.

And White won’t force Mitrione to apologize.

“You can’t make somebody apologize,” White said. “If I have to make him do it, it’s not real. He’s not really apologizing.

“If that’s his opinion on the situation: He doesn’t like that somebody who used to be a man and became a woman can fight other women. I don’t disagree with him on that. I don’t disagree."

Jones comfortable being himself these days

The past year has been quite memorable for light heavyweight champion Jon Jones: He was labeled "fake" by former friend and sparring partner Rashad Evans before their title bout, had his faith in Christ questioned and got a DWI conviction.

Jones revisited those experiences and concluded that trying to be what others expect of him is a losing battle. So Jones has decided to just be himself.

“I was pretending a lot to be the perfect person, to be super articulate when I’m talking,” Jones said. “I tried to be clean-cut and clean-shaven, be the perfect guy to be sponsored by Nike. And be the perfect, perfect poster boy for UFC.

“Now that I’ve had that whole situation happen to me I’m totally free. I can say what I want; I can be who I want. I’m still trying to be a good person and a good role model. But I’m doing it a little more authentically now.

“And it feels good. It feels good to just be me.”

Bisping learns with age, mistakes

Michael Bisping has a bad habit of coming up short in title eliminators. But it's Bisping's most recent setback, when a title shot was not on the line, that forced him to take a serious look at his approach to being a professional fighter.

Bisping still has images of fighting for the middleweight title and knows that he can no longer allow his weight to become an issue.

“You have to learn from your mistakes,” Bisping said. “You have to be honest with yourself. And there were things I was doing wrong between fights. I was putting on too much weight.

“I’m 34 now, the weight is harder to lose. I’m a professional sportsman, I got away with it in the past, but you’ve got to treat your body with the respect it deserves, especially in this sport.”

Nelson poised for a crack at the title?

Roy Nelson is a top-10 ranked heavyweight, but his name doesn’t come up in title conversations. He believes the timing is right to change that with a win Saturday night over Cheick Kongo.

“It really comes down to the fans,” Nelson said. “And it’s about the timing. After UFC 160, which is only a month [following UFC 159], I could definitely get a title shot.

“They’re talking about Hunt fighting for a title after he knocked out Struve, and I knocked out Struve a little bit easier.”

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cover your ears, Johny Hendricks.

UFC president Dana White told reporters on Thursday he’ll talk to welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre soon. The two haven’t spoken since St-Pierre recorded his eighth consecutive title defense over Nick Diaz at UFC 158 last month.

Expectations have been that St-Pierre (24-4) would face Hendricks (15-1) later this year, but White said that bout would go on hold should St-Pierre express interest in a long-anticipated, lucrative superfight with middleweight champ Anderson Silva.

“I am literally going to call Georges St-Pierre today and see what he wants to do,” White said.

“If Georges says to me, ‘I want to fight Anderson Silva,’ you think I’m going to go, ‘No, you’re not. You’re fighting Johny Hendricks’?”

Silva (33-4) is scheduled to defend his 185-pound title against Chris Weidman at UFC 162 in July. In yet another superfight wrinkle, light heavyweight champion Jon Jones will defend his title against Chael Sonnen at UFC 159 next week in Newark.

White said he’s interested in any fight that involves two of the three champions, saying if both St-Pierre and Jones wanted Silva, “that’s a good problem to have.”

Hendricks would be the clear loser if St-Pierre opts to fight Silva next. The former collegiate wrestler is on a six-fight win streak and was already leapfrogged earlier this year by Diaz, who was coming off a drug suspension.

White said St-Pierre would not vacate the 170-pound title if he took the Silva fight, meaning Hendricks would have to wait or accept another fight.

“If [St-Pierre] lost, he could still go back down and fight Hendricks for the title.”

Mitrione fined, suspended -- but forgiven

UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione has been fined an undisclosed amount and remains suspended for comments made last week regarding transgender fighter Fallon Fox.

The UFC quickly suspended Mitrione following an appearance on “The MMA Hour,” where he referred to Fox as a “freak.” Fox is scheduled for her third pro fight in May.

Mitrione (6-2), who defeated Philip De Fries via first-round knockout earlier this month, spoke with UFC president Dana White following the incident and took responsibility for his actions -- but there is no timetable for his return.

“It’s up to us,” White said regarding Mitrione’s suspension. “I’m not mad at Mitrione. He did something stupid. He knows he didn’t handle it the right way.

“I’m sure he wants to know [when he’ll fight again]. We’ll let him know when we decide. He was fined, too. Enough to make him call me three times.”

• A Brazilian fan attacked UFC light heavyweight Chael Sonnen during an event last weekend in Las Vegas, according to White.

Sonnen, who challenges Jon Jones for the 205-pound title next week at UFC 159, was in Las Vegas to attend "The Ultimate Fighter" finale at Mandalay Bay Events Center. According to White, he was involved in a minor scuffle during the show.

“I don’t know if any of you guys saw this, but he was there shaking hands with fans and one guy says, ‘Chael! Chael!” White said. “Chael goes over there and the guy started swinging at him, trying to punch him. The guy goes, ‘I’m from Brazil!'”

Sonnen (27-12-1) was involved in a heated rivalry with Brazilian middleweight champ Anderson Silva from 2010 to 2012. He went 0-2 in two fights against him.

• Whether his teammate claims the UFC lightweight title on Saturday or not, Nate Diaz says he’s moving back to 170 pounds.

Diaz (16-8) meets lightweight Josh Thomson on Saturday. His teammate, Gilbert Melendez, will look to dethrone champion Ben Henderson in the night’s main event.

Regardless of the outcome of either fight, Diaz says he intends to move back to welterweight, where he compiled a 2-2 record from 2010 to 2011.

“I already fought everybody at lightweight,” Diaz said. “I don’t think there is anything for me in the lightweight division. I already beat everybody or fought everybody. The only person who beat me was Ben. What, I’m going to sit around and fight all the same guys again? That’s boring. There’s no motivation in that.”

• Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner Daniel Cormier still wants to fight UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones -- just maybe not as soon as he once thought.

Cormier (11-1) faces arguably the biggest challenge of his career on Saturday as he takes on former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir in the night’s co-main event.

The former U.S. Olympic wrestler has been quietly shedding weight for a potential trip to the 205-pound division. Cormier’s teammate, Cain Velasquez, currently holds the UFC heavyweight title.

Cormier has publicly expressed interest in fighting Jones previously, but now says he’d probably want a test fight at 205 pounds first. The 34-year-old experienced kidney failure while cutting weight in 2008 but is confident he can make 205.

“At first, I was so emotionally tied to [fighting Jones],” Cormier said. “I’ve thought about it, and I wouldn’t be opposed to fighting one time down there just to see how my body reacts to the weight cut. It would be very difficult to fight him in my first fight, a five-round fight.

“What if I get in a fight and I can’t do anything but wrestle because my arms are tired and my body isn’t responding to the weight cut? I don’t want that guy to be Jon Jones. Seriously, can you imagine standing in with him and not feeling your best?”

Coverage of an ever-evolving Ultimate Fighting Championship has almost always centered on action inside the cage. Understandably so. Morphing from unregulated contests pitting single-disciplined any-weight fighters into licensed bouts across nine weight divisions under standardized rules, so much has obviously changed the past two decades that today’s Octagon hardly resembles the home of Royce Gracie or Tank Abbott or fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants promoting.

Yet despite its progress, particularly after Zuffa took control of the promotion in 2001, the Wild West perception of UFC persists. That's due in large part to Dana White, the dominant voice and face of a company now estimated to be worth a couple of billion dollars (or, roughly 1,000 times more than he and the Fertitta brothers paid to join the mixed martial arts business), whose template as an executive awash in profane, inane outbursts meshed uniquely with his stance that fighters could almost always rely on UFC support, no matter how badly they screwed up.

Those days could be over, for him and them, following the latest stage of UFC's evolution. Because embedded in the promotion's new fighter conduct policy, a copy of which Yahoo! Sports published Tuesday, is essentially the future of the company.

It was only 11 months ago when White suggested a code of conduct was entirely unnecessary for the UFC. Instances of fighters running afoul of the law, or expressing offensive words in public, especially on powerful social media platforms, were best handled by him -- as he saw fit.

“We're dealing with human beings and I don't even know how you could” enforce a conduct policy, an incredulous White explained to reporters in May 2012.

"You take it case by case and you deal with it as it should be dealt with."

That thinking was problematic.

Fighters remained unclear on what was right and what was wrong, and because we’re talking human beings, dumb, sometimes illegal stuff is bound to happen. As public figures associated with the UFC, lasting damage to the brand wasn’t such a stretch. (The Culinary Union in Las Vegas tweets out almost daily reminders.) It only confused matters when discipline was doled out differently for similar offenses -- though if there was a trend it suggested moneymaking stars rarely suffered the brunt of UFC’s arbitrary brand of justice.

Rightly so, media, fans and even fighters protested.

To its credit, Zuffa listened.

In January, UFC announced incoming (r)evolutionary conduct standards, similar to those enacted by major sports leagues, which would clearly define the difference between what was cool, what wasn't, and how the bad stuff would be dealt with.

UFC's legal head honcho, Lawrence Epstein, echoing White, suggested the policy would aim to discourage much of the nonsense the promotion coped with from fighters over the years, though it wouldn't go so far as to police their opinions.

"Some people believe in God," White said at the time. "I don't, and I've been public that I don't. Everybody is going to have their own opinions. If I got crucified and beat down because I don't think there's a god, c'mon man. This is America and everyone is going to have their own opinions."

We have the right to express opinions about our government without repercussion. Not so when it comes to private business, gender, ethnicity, religion, or who’s best to sleep with. That's not how the world works, especially when television networks and sponsors and corporate money are involved. With this version of UFC immersed in all of that, the ability to adjudicate case by case just wasn't an option anymore.

Opinions can be witless, which is fine. But swirl witless with mean spirited and you get what Matt Mitrione was putting down about transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox this week during an online radio appearance with MMAFighting.com.

Which is why despite saying speech wouldn’t be policed, when “Meathead" Mitrione opened his mouth and spewed what he did, UFC had no choice. At a minimum, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Yahoo!, “it warrants review” under the newly minted conduct policy. Sounds fair. Same goes for any act that makes UFC look bad.

There’s a long list. One that includes playing bumper cars on the freeway in a monster truck. Or assaulting someone in a parking lot. Or driving under the influence and crashing into a light pole at the break of dawn. Or getting entangled with performance-enhancing drugs. Just about anything you can imagine.

Where there wasn’t a framework for dealing with these episodes, including well-defined disciplinary and appeals processes, there is now. This represents another essential evolution of the UFC -- and by inherent extension mixed martial arts as a whole.

Raising the bar had to happen. It was overdue. So, like it did with rounds and weight classes, mixed martial arts’ top promotion did what was required.

Year after year, White says his vision is rooted in pushing UFC forward. Consider the conduct policy another major hurdle cleared on the path to UFC’s emergence as a global sports property. For that, White and Fertitta and their team in Las Vegas, Canada, Europe, Asia and Brazil should be praised.

How long will depend on how well UFC lives up to the document it drew up.

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Should Dominick Cruz be stripped of his UFC bantamweight title?

It's been nearly 18 months since he won a decision victory over Demetrious Johnson. Since that fight, Johnson has fought four times and captured the inaugural flyweight belt.

Johnson has been -- to use fight game vernacular -- "circulating." That's the preferred method for UFC titlists. Keep that belt dangling over the whole clumsy gang of lunging, outstretched arms.

As for Cruz, he has gone through one rehabilitation stint to repair his blown out ACL and is halfway through another. He explained in excruciating detail the spiral of events on "UFC Tonight." There was the cadaver tendon that didn't take the first time (costing him a year), and now the second procedure, where part of his own patella tendon has become his ACL. That has sidelined him for that extended period of horizonless time we've come to call indefinitely.

It's hard not to feel for Cruz. Though he's swiftly making a name for himself as one of the best television analysts going, the date Oct. 1, 2011 keeps getting smaller and smaller in his rear-view window. That was the last time he stepped in the Octagon. In MMA, that feels like a lifetime ago -- for Cruz certainly, but particularly for the promotion.

Forget vague notions of ring rust, we're now breaking into concepts of urgency. It might be Oct. 2013 before we see Cruz again. It might be later. As much as we like to delude ourselves otherwise, life goes on without us. All of us. Even top 10 pound-for-pound fighters. The UFC, as an event-based promotion with its strongest moorings in the pay-per-view business, has to move on. To be vital, things have to be current. Things have to stay active.

That's why there's such a thing as interim titles in the first place -- though they are make-believe, they function well enough as winking placeholders. They keep things rolling, and the idea of the belt stays intact. But everybody knows that interim titles are only half-satisfying. Even when the UFC wraps a symbolic belt around somebody, we can't keep from nudging each other.

Why? It's not quite real. It's a mirage.

And after a while, that belt has to mean something. If Renan Barao, the interim bantamweight champion, is headlining a pay-per-view card in June -- which he is, UFC 161 in Winnipeg against Eddie Wineland -- wouldn't it be better to knock the adjective from the equation? Instead of "interim champion Renan Barao" -- with the interim label a constant reminder that he's a dynamic, hard-striking stopgap but not really number one -- shouldn't it be simply: bantamweight champion Renan Barao?

That sort of takes the surrogacy from things and raises the pitch to makes things seem bigger and more dire and marquee worthy. An actual champion makes it more legit. Cruz's shadow won't sell that PPV.

Which brings back the question: Should he be stripped of his title? At this point, probably, but we're dealing in asterisks either way.

It's not a Randy Couture situation where contracts are in dispute. Couture retained his belt through the whole money/Fedor Emelianenko fallout anyway. There isn't any acrimony here. Cruz's situation is closer to the Frank Mir case back in 2004. Mir, after winning the UFC's heavyweight title against Tim Sylvia at UFC 48, was in a motorcycle accident that sidelined him for 14 months. When Andrei Arlovski won the interim title against Sylvia at UFC 51, the idea was to marry up the belts in a fight with Arlovski and Mir. Same as with Barao and Cruz.

Only, Mir (knee, leg) wasn't ready when the time came. As a result, he was stripped of his title to keep the heavyweight belt in play. Not the less meaningful placeholder title, but the newly made legitimate real McCoy.

Heavyweight is a lot more glamorous than bantamweight -- particularly at that time, back when there were only a few divisions -- but the situations are similar. It wasn't Mir's fault that he couldn't recover in a timely fashion, and it's not Cruz's either. But if Barao is going to headline a PPV, he can't be masquerading as a champion. He should be one.

So what happens next?

In London a few weeks back, after Barao's first interim title defense against Michael McDonald, Dana White said he'd have a meeting with Cruz to discuss all this. White told ESPN.com on Thursday that he hasn't yet had a chance to have that meeting.

That day is coming, though, and relatively soon. When that discussion happens it will likely center on this: Barao has defended the interim title once, and Cruz isn't quite ready. Make Barao the champion ahead of his next title defense, and let Cruz work his way back towards him. After all, once Cruz finally does make his way back, how fair would it be to stick him in there right away to defend against Barao?

That's a tall order for a guy coming off a lengthy rehab with so many affiliated question marks. Might be better to cede now, and take back what's rightfully his when momentums have had a chance to align.

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If we learned anything about Nick Diaz from the epic oratory performance he put on at UFC 158, it’s that he’s not going to lie to us.

Diaz can be called a lot of things, but "liar" certainly isn’t one of them. If anything, the American ambassador to the 209 was painstakingly honest last week before, during and after his lopsided loss to Georges St-Pierre on Saturday night.

As things progressed he was lobbed numerous queries -- about steroids or marijuana or whether he thought the UFC wanted him to lose -- which probably would’ve best been handled with a simple “no comment.” Diaz, the guy who theoretically hates doing media so much he sometimes doesn’t bother to show up, never once demurred. By the end, one thing was clear: Ask him a question and you will absolutely not get a straight answer, but the extended jumble-jamble of words that tumble out of his mouth won’t be sugarcoated or politically correct or -- for that matter -- filtered in any way.

So, if the question we’re asking ourselves on Monday morning is whether to believe Diaz when he tells us he’s retired from MMA, the simple answer is “yes." Yes, we can believe he was telling us the truth about that ... at the very moment the words left his lips.

Thing is, Diaz has a more complicated relationship with the truth than most people. He’s what literature buffs might call an unreliable narrator. That is, a guy who can’t be trusted to see the world the same way the rest of us do.

Keep in mind that this is a fighter who on Saturday night announced his retirement for the second time amid a fairly rambling response that also intimated he thinks the rules of MMA are set up for him to fail and stopped just barely short of blaming his loss to St-Pierre on some kind of spygate conspiracy within his own camp.

“To be honest, I don’t know if I really got it anymore," he said, during one of his more self-reflective moments. "I don’t make excuses. I think I’m done with mixed martial arts. I’m tired of getting banged up like this. ... Hopefully I made enough money to invest in something.”

At that second, it was the truth according to Nick Diaz, and we couldn’t help but notice it sounded eerily similar to a truth he voiced 13 months ago, on the heels of an only slightly less definitive loss to Carlos Condit: "I think I'm done with this MMA stuff,” Diaz said at the time. “I don't think they can pay me enough to do this again.”

We all know that particular truth changed a few months later, when rumors first circulated that Diaz would consider coming out of “retirement” for a superfight against middleweight king Anderson Silva. By November, he’d somehow talked his way into a shot at St-Pierre’s welterweight crown. Now that fight has (finally) come and gone and Diaz is retired anew, though this truth, too, had begun to morph into something different by the time he wandered into the postfight news conference some 30 minutes late.

"I just feel like I fought everybody that I set out to fight ...,” he said, taking the stage at the event only after UFC president Dana White announced Diaz wouldn’t be there at all. “But I want a rematch. I think I could beat [St-Pierre]. I think I may be a better matchup for Anderson Silva, as well, but we'll see what happens.”

So there you have it. Diaz wants to retire. Or he wants a rematch. Or he wants to fight Silva. Or something. He wants them all simultaneously and at once manages to give the impression he wants none of them at all.

If he does walk away from MMA forever, seemingly in his prime at the age of 29, it’ll be far from the strangest thing he’s done in his career. Or even last week.

For now the truth is, Diaz is retired, until he decides he’s not.

As always, the truth will continue to be whatever he wants it to be.

MONTREAL -- For everything the Georges St-Pierre-Nick Diaz bout wasn’t -- enthralling, competitive, an out-and-out war -- Georges St-Pierre versus Johny Hendricks just might be. And that’s the silver lining after UFC 158, where wolf tickets and dark places finally converged.

Hendricks was victorious over former No. 1 contender Carlos Condit on Saturday in Montreal, and made his case (yet again) for a fight with St-Pierre. Unlike when he defeated Josh Koscheck and Martin Kampmann, this time everybody -- including UFC president Dana White -- seems to be on board with the idea.

“There’s no doubt, as far as the welterweight division is concerned, Johny Hendricks is next in line,” White told ESPN.com moments after UFC 158 wrapped up. “As for a superfight with Anderson Silva, that’s up to Georges St-Pierre. If Georges came out today and said he wanted to fight Anderson Silva, I won’t be upset about it.”

With Silva booked to fight Chris Weidman in July at UFC 161, Hendricks is finally the guy. He and Condit went toe-to-toe for three back and forth rounds, with Hendricks using his All-American wrestling in spots throughout to control the action. Other times he pursued Condit across the cage winging huge left hands, some of which found their mark. Each time Condit truly pressed the action, he was dumped on his back. When they stood, the exchanges were fierce.

It was good enough for "fight of the night" honors. More important, it really pushed Hendricks (15-1) over the edge as a legitimate contender for St-Pierre.

Suddenly, Hendricks’ punching power, combined with his ability to dictate the fight, looks very interesting against the champion. It feels like a battle of strong nullifying wrestlers who can throw hands. Hendricks feels like an actual threat to the throne.

“I think [Hendricks] is fantastic, and he’s a great athlete and he deserves a shot,” said St-Pierre’s coach Firas Zahabi. “I don’t make those decisions, though -- it’s the UFC, it’s the management. I’m pretty confident it’s going to happen. I think it’s going to be a great fight.”

“He’s a great wrestler, good power,” added St-Pierre, who was eating a slice of pizza and feeling good after so many weeks of animosity toward Diaz. “We’ll see what’s going to happen. Obviously I want to fight the best.”

After his eighth title defense (50-45 on all scorecards over Diaz), St-Pierre is finding himself almost too far ahead of the competition. Carlos Condit was hoping for a rematch with St-Pierre, but it never felt like the UFC was behind the idea 100 percent, even if Condit had won. Diaz, who has been the bane of St-Pierre’s existence for the last year-and-a-half, promptly ended his retirement talk by telling MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, “I want a rematch!”

That’s also highly unlikely to happen anytime soon. If ever.

The problem is, St-Pierre has handled everybody he’s faced over the last few years to the point that no rematch is ever truly coveted. Not a rematch with Condit, not with Diaz, not with anybody. St-Pierre wins too convincingly. These days you get one shot, and you had better make the most of it.

“If you look, he’s fighting all the best welterweights in the world, and continues to win,” White said. “I think Georges had a really great game plan. He went in there, and he stood up [with Diaz]. He went to the ground. The fight went everywhere, and he won again. I don’t know what else to say. It was a great fight.”

One might say, too great. So great that it looked lopsided. Did it feel that way to St-Pierre?

“Yeah, but he was dangerous the whole time,” he said. “It was one-sided but he put me in danger sometimes. So I always had to be aware of the danger.”

It didn’t appear that way. It was the same old dominant Georges St-Pierre. It turns out he fights the same when somebody is in his head as he does when they’re not.

“It was huge because it was such an emotional thing,” Zahabi said. “I’ve never seen Georges so emotional. He really wanted this fight. He wanted to fight Diaz before anybody else does, and I think he got his fill tonight. I don’t think he’s going to want to fight Diaz again. It’s over.”

It’s over for Diaz. It’s on for Hendricks.

Georges St-Pierre swears he isn't angered by Nick Diaz, yet his body language and promoter tell a different tale.

"Georges is being weird right now," UFC president Dana White said Thursday. "Georges isn't close to being Georges.

"There's no doubt this thing has messed with his head. I just think he's pissed. He's a in a different place than he's ever been because he's mad."

“

Georges is being weird right now. Georges isn't close to being Georges. There's no doubt this thing has messed with his head. I just think he's pissed. He's a in a different place than he's ever been because he's mad.

” -- Dana White on Nick Diaz's head games before his showdown with Georges St-Pierre.

White said he visited the 31-year-old welterweight champion in the Montreal hotel hosting UFC fighters this week and the man wasn't his polite self. St-Pierre was curt. He was "different, weird." St-Pierre's sighs and eye rolls and perturbed facial expressions at the final news conference before meeting Diaz at the Bell Centre on Saturday sure were hard to miss. At a minimum he appeared frustrated with having to listen to Diaz rant again, that "uneducated fool." At most, he’s steaming mad, like White suggested, and thusly off his game.

As UFC 158 approaches, the intrigue hangs on St-Pierre’s attitude and whether it will impact what he attempts to do to Diaz in the cage. Will the estimable champion’s distaste for Diaz lead him to try to bury the challenger from California? Or will he lift off the gas and stay conservative, a recoiling reaction to what he’s feeling inside?

Control has always been the name of St-Pierre's game. Mentally. Tactically. Physically. Emotionally. He does not go off the rails because he just doesn't. Well ... hasn’t.

"As crazy as Nick Diaz seems,” White insinuated, "there's strategy in it."

Has that strategy worked on a man with just one fluke loss in 17 fights since 2004?

Asked whether St-Pierre really is upset enough with Diaz ahead of another monster fight in his hometown to do something foolish, John Danaher, the champ’s jiu-jitsu trainer and cerebral guru, demurred.

"He is a professional and a tactician,” Danaher said. “He knows that technique wedded to physical preparation guided by strategy wins fights; not emotion."

St-Pierre, to be fair, is also a man, one -- based on recent evidence -- seemingly not above wearing frustration like his tailored pinstripe suits. Even the best of us are capable of succumbing to that reality from time to time, no?

"A man who extolls high-percentage approaches to gain competitive advantage,” Danaher responded. “Emotions are for amateurs."

How is this even possible in a hot-blooded sport like MMA? To be so detached as to remove all emotion?

St-Pierre has been tagged as some sort of automaton, so if there’s a person able to live above the fray, perhaps it’s him. Yet his reactions to Diaz, the pressure that comes with fighting in the city that raised him, the expectations built into a St-Pierre fight ... none of those things come across as emotion-free.

Which thoughts will prevail in his head as he stands across from Diaz on fight night:

Anger? Hate? Self-preservation? Control?

For all of White’s selling of St-Pierre as somehow off his French-Canadian rocker, it is a difficult notion to accept. Nothing in St-Pierre’s history, at least caged history, indicates he’ll forgo tactics for a firefight. Nothing. He’ll walk into the cage having been buoyed by the preconceptions of superiority, and for good reason. St-Pierre appears stronger, more athletic, more ring-intelligent. Diaz gets hit too much in the head and St-Pierre holds speed, power and reach advantages. Diaz can’t defend low kick and St-Pierre will really turn into them when he wants to. And Diaz won’t be able to stay off his back against the best MMA wrestler in the sport. From his back Diaz is dangerous yet wide-open, and St-Pierre has always been aware and efficient.

You see, St-Pierre should be able to dictate what he wants, which is why the potential for him losing it is so interesting. Every perceived advantage is in his corner. He’s as pro as pro can be, and remember, emotions are for amateurs.

Given everything that’s transpired in the lead-up to this title fight, it’s difficult to picture, if afforded the chance, when risk is minimized and the advantage is clear, that St-Pierre wouldn’t attempt to pound Diaz into the canvas.

Out of anger. Or not.

MONTREAL -- The big news was that Nick Diaz showed up. Believe it or not, this was a concern after the challenger skipped Wednesday’s open workouts in Montreal. And after, you know, his history of sort of not showing up.

“Well it was either I miss that, or I miss this, but I was going to have to catch up on some sleep,” he explained right off the bat at the press conference to promote his title fight against Georges St-Pierre. His flight from Northern California touched down in Quebec at midnight Tuesday evening. Wednesday was no good for him, but by Thursday, he was at last refreshed and ready to talk.

And talk he did. Diaz careened off into subject matter that ranged from sweating out toxic water, to his outdated likeness on the UFC 158 promo posters, to point deductions being handed out for stalling and holding guys down (some psychology aimed at St-Pierre), to the UFC selling wolf tickets (“they’re selling you all wolf tickets and you people are eating them right up”).
Snake oil was never mentioned. But had it have been, it would have fit right in. “Diazisms” were a dime a dozen. St-Pierre, whose own distaste for press conferences and the redundancy of the questions was barely contained, fired back once in a while. But most questions were directed at Diaz and Dana White, who was looking down at him with a red, muted face as if to interject (or destroy him via telepathy).

Meanwhile, Carlos Condit, Jake Ellenberger and Nate Marquardt, all on the card and present, never said a word. Marquardt smiled and chuckled along with the media. Ellenberger might as well have had laryngitis. As for Condit, he did roll his eyes at one point when Diaz went off on yet another tangent.

Actually, hey, let me get out the way and post a couple of those tangential highlights. My thoughts follow in italics.


“I would like to put out the best image I could. To be honest with you I think a lot of times they make me out to be the evil guy. I fit the description of the evil villain. I think Georges fits the description of a good guy. I mean, look at my poster. No offense, but [the UFC] has had plenty of time to switch my poster. That picture of me is from years ago. Can I get one buttered up, photoshop picture on a poster?”

It’s true. The poster features a younger Nick Diaz, who is mean-mugging more than entirely necessary. Come to think of it, he has a legitimate beef here.

–- “Georges likes to say I remind him of the bullies that picked on him growing up. How many times did you have a gun to your head, Georges? How many times has somebody put a gun to your head? How many of your best friends have been shot through the chest with a .45? How many of your friends have been stomped and put to sleep in a coma? How many kids put gum in your hair?”

He reiterated a form of this in an ESPN interview. The guess here is GSP can count on one hand how many times he’s had gum put in his hair.

–- “Georges here is selling wolf tickets. Dana here is selling wolf tickets. The UFC is selling you some wolf tickets. You guys are eating them right up.”

Wolf tickets are now out-hashtagging GSP’s dark place on Twitter.

Meanwhile, White, who curtailed some of the “antagonism” headed Diaz’s way and had a semi-heated moment with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, did a good job of reminding everyone of why we were here.

“All the stuff that leads up to this thing, all the selling of wolf tickets, all the things that happen leads up to this fight -- there is going to be a fight Saturday night.”

Condit done with being cautious


There was a moment at UFC 154 when it looked like Condit was going to break the heart of Montreal when he rocked St-Pierre. It was only for about 90 seconds or so of a 25-minute fight, but it was enough to bring him to a realization: Should he get that rematch with St-Pierre, he’ll go for broke.

“In [the St-Pierre fight], I think I hesitated,” he told ESPN.com. “Sometimes I was a little bit gun shy. I just need to go back to letting it all hang out, leaving everything in the cage, and really just focusing on what I bring to the table as opposed to training for the other guy’s strengths.”

When asked if he can let it all hang out against a smasher like Johny Hendricks, who has an anvil for a left hand, Condit thought about it for a quick second before answering.

“I can, but I just have to be smart,” he said.

Potluck

ESPN’s Brett Okamoto asked Diaz if he changed anything in his use of medical marijuana after what happened last time (when he tested positive for metabolites in Nevada, and was suspended for a year).

“I think I tested for metabolite, or nanogram, or something,” he said. “I just did a little more than I did last time, so sorry if I don’t pass the test -- but I think it should work out. I’ve passed plenty of them before, unless they just weren’t testing me. I wonder how much they test people around here.”

Then he shot St-Pierre a strong, insinuating glance. What does it all mean? Not even remotely sure. But “it should work out” didn’t exactly come off like reassurance to the boss who was standing right next to him.

(White mentioned later in the media scrum that, should Diaz test positive for marijuana again, he would “probably” be cut).

Brotherly gloves

Diaz’s younger brother Nate, who will be in Nick’s corner on Saturday night, was at the press conference and speaking to media. Somebody brought up the incestuous matchmaking methods of the Canadian promotion MFC, which recently booked a fight between brothers Thomas and Mike Treadwell.

Since we all know Nate Diaz is a “Diaz brother” and not just Nick’s brother, he was asked about his thoughts on that.

“That kind of makes me sick, when you think about it. Guys fighting each other, and they’re brothers? They’re a bunch of idiots as far as I’m concerned. It’s ridiculous. Do they even know each other?”

In 2013, the year of the “superfight” and new-fashioned division jumping in the UFC, anything is possible.

How possible? A simple, timely text can shake up an entire division for the better part of a year. Ask Ricardo Lamas, who should have been the next featherweight for Jose Aldo if Anthony Pettis, ten pounds and 1,000 decibels his superior, wasn’t the quickest Blackberry draw in the Midwest.

When Dana White got the buzz that night, it played out like this: Merit, shmerit. This game deals in duckets.

Imagine that: Diaz-Ellenberger is the potential title fight nobody is talking about.

Now Pettis-Aldo is slated to take place in far-off August. Jon Jones versus Anderson Silva has been speculated about for New York (or Brazil [or Dallas]) in November (or December), even though Silva is fighting Chris Weidman in July, and Jones has a fight with Chael Sonnen in April. Apparently Sonnen can be looked right past to the “superfight” everybody wants. In fact, Jones/Silva is the only true superfight right now that is super enough to make rational people superstitious. Nobody wants to jinx it, except a couple of pesky wrestlers who stand in their way.

Then there’s UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, who is talking about bouncing up to welterweight to face Georges St-Pierre, even though he has a fight with reigning Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez this spring, and GSP fights Nick Diaz next weekend.

That idea has since been shot down by White but, what, is Melendez a hologram? It used to be that media and fans were always thinking two steps ahead. Now the fighters are, too? This is fantastic. (I have to admit -- it’s fun to align in such foolish behavior!).

At least the scenarios get simpler from here, so let's look ahead. On March 16, at UFC 158, the welterweights will come into focus. It’s really black and white. The three top fights on the card are 170-pounders. St-Pierre, who we are assured has a dark chamber in his psyche that nobody (especially that inconsiderate Nick Diaz!) can possibly fathom, headlines the event.

All revolves around him beating Diaz. If he defeats Diaz he could fight anyone from Johny Hendricks to Carlos Condit to Jake Ellenberger to Silva, this summer, this fall, or this winter. The line snakes around the block. Hendricks more than deserves the shot, particularly if he beats Condit that same night. He has been deserving for what feels like years. If Hendricks and St-Pierre both win, that fight seems obvious.

In 2011, maybe. In 2013, not so fast.

That’s because people like Silva and Henderson happen to exist. Though Silva is now booked to fight Weidman at UFC 162, he can't help but still hover over St-Pierre in 2013. Now with a new contract, it's possible he courts that St-Pierre fight sooner rather than later. St-Pierre would have to be coaxed into agreeing, of course, which is never a given.

In other words, even if all goes to plan and both GSP and Hendricks win, Hendricks could find himself on the outside looking in. Yet again. If that were the case, maybe Hendricks could fight Rory MacDonald next, who was scrapped from the card when he got injured. He was supposed to face Condit.

And speaking of Condit, he could emerge as a dark horse in the St-Pierre sweepstakes. If he takes care of No. 1 contender Hendricks, he has some ammo. After all, the first fight had that fleeting moment when Condit came unnervingly close. And if Diaz pulls the upset over St-Pierre and somehow makes it out of Montreal in one piece, same thing -- Diaz-Condit II is viable (unless the fight results in a scorecard nightmare and St-Pierre/Diaz II has to be played back immediately). If Condit wins and somebody texts Dana White to jump the line to GSP, you’ve still got the Condit-MacDonald vendetta to sort out. No scenario is without a silver lining.

There are other factors. Ellenberger is on the card fighting Nate Marquardt, who two years after trying to debut at 170 pounds in the UFC finally gets his chance. One of them -- namely Ellenberger -- could factor into this title discussion, too. Much like an 8-7 NFL team heading into the final regular season game in a tight Wild Card race -- Ellenberger is mathematically alive, but needs help. He needs an emphatic showing and some smiling fortune, such as Johny Hendricks losing. The UFC might jump him to the top to avoid rolling back Condit-GSP II too soon in that case (even though Ellenberger lost to Condit narrowly in 2009). Unless Diaz wins, that is, and Condit faces a long medical suspension in victory.

Imagine that: Diaz-Ellenberger is the potential title fight nobody is talking about.

What’s at stake come March 16 in this makeshift welterweight grand prix? Feels like plenty. But in 2013, “what’s at stake” has turned into a versatile question. There is no obvious answer. And if you ask White beforehand, you’re likely to get his go-to response for most things yon: We’ll see what happens.

While UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and his handlers said a title bout with lightweight contender Anthony Pettis was out of the question, promotion president Dana White begged to differ.

Something had to give, but when White’s involved in these types of disputes, he usually wins. This dispute proved to be no exception.

White announced Monday night on Twitter that the Aldo-Pettis showdown is a go.

“And it’s for Aldo’s 145-pound title,” White added.

The announcement comes less than two days after White revealed that Aldo was balking at facing Pettis, who has never competed professionally at featherweight.

According to White, Team Aldo was of the opinion that Pettis didn’t deserve a 145-pound title shot. Pettis, the former WEC lightweight champion, was in line to face the Benson Henderson-Gilbert Melendez winner.

Henderson, the reigning UFC lightweight champ, and Melendez are slated to fight April 20 in San Jose, Calif. Melendez is the former Strikeforce lightweight titleholder.

Pettis, however, got the itch to move down a weight class and face Aldo after witnessing the champ successfully defend his title against former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar at UFC 156 on Feb. 2 in Las Vegas.

Immediately after that bout, Pettis sent White a text expressing his desire to fight Aldo at 145. White liked the idea, and shortly thereafter made the fight official.

Then Team Aldo made its position known to UFC officials.

“Jose Aldo came out and said, ‘There is no way in hell I’m fighting Pettis,’” White said Saturday night in Anaheim, Calif., shortly after UFC 157. “He’s absolutely refusing to fight Pettis; he doesn’t think [Pettis] deserves the shot.”

But White quickly let it be known that Aldo better reconsider or prepare to face the consequences. Based on White’s announcement Monday night, Aldo has decided to take the fight.

Aldo will defend his title against Pettis on Aug. 3. UFC has yet to announce where the fight will take place.