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The UFC’s flyweight division was exactly one fight old when things went haywire at the top.

That’s so 2012 in the UFC. When title belts are in play, all paths look more like construction zones with detours.

This time, Ian McCall appeared as if he’d won a back-and-forth fight to advance in the shudder-speed flyweight tournament. Then the scorecards were read and it was actually Demetrious Johnson who won a majority decision, turning "Uncle Creepy’s" maestro swagger off as fast as it came on.

His depression didn’t last long.

To the chagrin of flyweight matchmaker Sean Shelby, who was in Columbus for Strikeforce some 10,000 miles away, the Australian athletic commission miscalculated the scorecards on McCall/Johnson. The result should have been a majority draw, and somewhere in the bowels of Allphones Arena in Sydney they informed Dana White, whose only response could be the obligatory tirade of profanity. They weren’t. And the disheartening thing for the UFC was that this was an eventuality it had prepared for by introducing a sudden victory round -- à la "The Ultimate Fighter" format -- to resolve any draws at the end.

But there’s no accounting for human error, and nothing much can be done in that situation except adopt the common shoulder-shrugger’s refrain: it is what it is.

Now Joseph Benavidez -- who TKO’d Yasuhiro Urushitani -- will wait for a rematch that most will be stoked to see and yet shouldn’t have to see. Flies in the Vaseline, they are. Sadly, the UFC’s newest division adds to the already algebraic complications going on with the UFC’s title pictures.

Go back a week and start there. Benson Henderson defeated Frankie Edgar at UFC 144 in a close fight to take home the lightweight strap. Seeing that it was a close fight, one that could be interpreted either way, Edgar asked for an immediate rematch. Problem is that Anthony Pettis, who knocked out Joe Lauzon the same night, wants his shot at the belt, too. He was the last man to defeat Henderson, and was at one point the solid No. 1 contender (a position he fancies himself in again). Jim Miller and Nate Diaz are operating with the understanding (delusion?) that their May 5 fight in New Jersey is a title eliminator.

It’s complicated.

Of everyone, Edgar is the unignorable here. The UFC wants him to challenge Jose Aldo for the featherweight belt, but Edgar doesn’t want to. He rematched B.J. Penn and Gray Maynard without quibbling, and he wants some return love. It’s hard to argue. Before his fight with Henderson, the UFC romanticized Edgar as a Rocky-esque figure in the hype process. Yet not even Rocky was Rocky coming off of wins. He was Rocky because of how he responded to losses. First with Apollo Creed, then with Clubber Lang. And later, after losing the vainglorious Creed to a killing machine from Russia, against Ivan Drago.

How can the UFC draw upon a man’s heart and not give him the chance to show its full dimensions? Having lost to the bigger, stronger Henderson sets the table for a truer representation of his nonfictional Rocky story.

As an extension of the uncertainty at 155 pounds and Edgar, the featherweight division is in limbo. What next for Aldo? Then you glance at the welterweight title picture, and that's way out of focus. Georges St. Pierre is recovering from ACL surgery, and is either way ahead of schedule or possibly right on schedule or something else. He is tentatively looking at a November return. Interim titleholder Carlos Condit is waiting to see something definitive in that timetable before deciding what to do next. Jake Ellenberger is waiting to see what Condit does, and now so is Martin Kampmann (the last man to defeat Condit). It’s possible we don’t see an “actual” title defense at 170 pounds this year.

By slotting Dominick Cruz against Urijah Faber as the coaches on "The Ultimate Fighter" Season 15, that means Cruz won’t defend his bantamweight belt until the summer. And that means any challengers beyond Faber -- guys like super-sensation Renan Barao -- are out of luck until winter.

As for middleweights, Anderson Silva is finally going to fight again in June after recovering from bursitis in his shoulder. There’s a chance we see just one middleweight title fight in 2012.

With eight weight divisions, and a conservative average of two fights per year, there should be in the neighborhood of 16 title fights. That won’t be the case in 2012. There might be 10, if we're lucky.

Can you imagine if Jon Jones had made good on his request to take a few months off? Light heavyweight is the closest the UFC has to a normally functioning division right now. And it looks like Junior dos Santos is ready to go, if Alistair Overeem can avoid injuries and conflicts beforehand.

Otherwise, title fights are scarce to come by this year. Which means we’ll be watching a lot more PFC (Penultimate Fighting Championship) than UFC (the Ultimate variety).

Is it wrong to kind of like a George St. Pierre-less welterweight division?

Not that we don’t want him back in November, but these last few months have been kind of fun, yeah? For starters, the St. Pierre injury story is great in itself. No fighter has been able to legitimately challenge him in years. Can a knee injury do it?

Because to be honest, the novelty of St. Pierre ho-hummingly dominating opponents one five-round fight after another had started to wear off. It was still an impressive run, absolutely, but -- come on. In sports, we’re supposed to get drama. We like two-minute drills. We like half-court prayers. We like a man on third, two outs in the bottom of the ninth, down by one.

What’s been kind of nice about St. Pierre being out to start 2012 is that it’s allowed us to envision a welterweight division without such a dominant champ. And what that vision looks like are razor-thin title fights and a serious group of contenders who would trade the belt back and forth between themselves for years.

From a business standpoint, you don’t mind the St. Pierre model. A dominant champ entices casual fans to watch and see what the fuss is about. Hardcore fans will tune in as well, if for no other reason to make absolutely sure they are watching when he loses.

But from a sports fan perspective, I think most would admit they’re ready to see what “St. Pierre in trouble” looks like again. The eye injury he suffered during the Jake Shields win was certainly adversity he had to overcome, but it’s not like the outcome of that fight was ever in question.

So, here’s the question: Can any of these welterweights we’re getting excited about during St. Pierre’s absence actually beat him when he comes back? As I did in October with the lightweights, let’s sort out which of these guys has the best shot at being the one to end St. Pierre’s reign.

The “if stars align and everything imaginable goes your way then maybe ... but still probably not” Group: Dan Hardy, Diego Sanchez, John Hathaway, Rick Story, Dong Hyun Kim.

Go on, laugh at Hardy even being included on this list. Hey, he’s about as long as a long shot can be. But if the organization is willing to hang on to him after four fairly miserable outings, then what’s to say they wouldn’t reward him with a title shot quickly if he were to get hot again?

Sanchez is interesting because if I’m a UFC welterweight I say to myself, “Man, I should call out Diego. I’m pretty sure I can beat him and he’s a big name to add to my résumé.” The only problem is I do that, then I get to the third round of the fight and Sanchez is still coming forward, spewing blood from the nose I’m pretty sure I broke with my knee in the first round and, suddenly, I’m scared. Not sure of what exactly, but definitely scared. This will happen in the next two years: A rising prospect calls out Sanchez and loses.

The “Any way we could combine these two?”: Thiago Alves, Martin Kampmann.

I think last weekend’s fight summed up both fighters pretty well. Kampmann is a gamer with tremendous will but he lacks elite-type athleticism. Alves is the opposite -- he might be the best athlete in the division but he’s vulnerable to mental lapses.

It’s not a terrible idea to go for a takedown in the final minute of a fight you’re winning to remove the flash KO threat, but in these circumstances (Kampmann has five submission wins in the UFC against one TKO) it was bad judgment. And the worst part is, fair or not, we’ve sort of come to expect this from Alves. For the record, though, of these two, I still give Alves a better shot overall at ever holding the belt.

The potential feel-good story of the century: Jake Shields.

If this were Hollywood, wouldn’t you lay everything you’ve got on Shields having a monster year in 2012 and claiming the belt in 2013? In the movie world, St. Pierre would be made out as a way more sinister foe in their first fight and maybe, after the loss to Ellenberger, movie Shields would go on some month-long drinking/partying binge that threatens to end his fighting career. But by the time the credits rolled, he’d be pointing up to the sky with a title belt around his waist.

It could happen. We know the guy is talented. He’s 33 and hasn’t taken a ton of damage despite a lengthy career. And I still think, for whatever reason, we caught Shields on an off night at UFC 129.

The blazing hot prospect and the simmering hot prospect: Rory MacDonald, Erick Silva.

Some of you will no doubt have MacDonald higher on your list, but I can’t quite pull the trigger on a 22-year-old whose biggest win is arguably over string bean Nate Diaz. Don’t get me wrong, I love MacDonald as a future titleholder, just not sure if you can rank him higher than these other guys right now.

Silva, same thing. He certainly looks the part, but so far both opponents he’s fought in the UFC took the fight on short notice and both came within friendly confines of his home country.

The old faithfuls: Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch.

These guys have been here for years and they’ll continue to be here through at least 2013. Fitch’s loss to Johny Hendricks could mean nothing. It was 12 seconds. He was facing some serious ring rust. If you think it’s the last we’ve seen of him, it’s probably because you just don’t like him and it’s clouding your judgment.

Koscheck gets the opportunity to avenge his friend’s loss against Hendricks in May. It’s a surprising fight to me because you’re risking a possible No. 1 contender to a guy who, as long as St. Pierre has the belt, can’t really be a No. 1 contender. Koscheck is high on this list because of his skills but frankly, a lot of things outside his control need to happen if he’s ever going to win the welterweight title.

The "highly" unlikely: Nick Diaz.

He’s probably getting a one-year suspension. If that’s the case, he can’t fight until February 2013. What kind of fight does he pull when he gets back? There will still be a lot of interest in a St. Pierre fight, even if St. Pierre isn’t even holding the belt, but do you really like his chances in that fight after such a long layoff? I don’t. So, would he get a “tune-up” fight first? Even if he did, it would be against a legitimate guy with a real chance at beating him. If that happens, he probably needs to win two more fights to get a title shot. Sorry, but there are just enough unknowns right now that I no longer love Diaz’s chances. He still claims a high spot on this list though because when he comes back, a matchup against St. Pierre is so marketable the UFC will so its best to put it together.

The favorites: Carlos Condit, Jake Ellenberger, Johny Hendricks.

In that order. Condit sits at the top thanks mainly to the intangibles on his side. He’s getting the next opportunity to do it -- at least that’s what it looks like. St. Pierre will be dealing with a very long layoff and he’ll be competing for the first time on his reconstructed knee. Stylistically, he faces an uphill battle in my opinion but not an insurmountable one. If he can stay on his feet, he’ll hit St. Pierre. He’ll get taken down but he’s terrific at escapes and he’s very tough mentally. He won’t be intimidated and he’ll keep working even if things don’t go well early.

Ellenberger is actually my favorite to get it done from a stylistic standpoint. I think he’s the most athletically gifted of the three and I like his standup a little over Hendricks’, although they both clearly hit hard. It would be good if he was a little bigger, but St. Pierre isn’t a huge welterweight either. He’d be very dangerous in a fight against the champ, especially early in the fight.

Hendricks is right there as well. He has the game changer in the left hand and, although St. Pierre would frustrate him a bit in the speed aspect, he’s not an easy opponent to control.

When it’s all said and done though, I guess this is all for naught because it’s very difficult to see anyone unseating St. Pierre. My guess is he makes this whole knee-injury, layoff ordeal look easy. That is, after all, the St. Pierre we’ve come to know.

Jake Ellenberger is convinced Carlos Condit does not want to risk his UFC welterweight title shot by fighting him during Georges St. Pierre's absence. More »

For all the marvels, one thing that UFC President Dana White has never been particularly good at is speaking for Dan Henderson. This was the case before Henderson bolted for Strikeforce, and it’s still the case right now.

And for as telegraphic as Henderson has been in his latest title quest -- in any division he can physically make from middleweight on up -- he apparently turns into a sphinx when it comes to everything besides. White says Hendo’s waiting for Jon Jones/Rashad Evans; Henderson says that isn't true, that he wants to stay busy. White says Hendo turned down a fight with Lyoto Machida; Henderson says that’s the buffet talking -- that fight was never on the table.

One of these guys needs to get a landline, because the phone calls keep breaking up.

So what’s the truth? Probably that neither party has any good ideas on what to do. Henderson is hovering as contender No. 1B in two divisions, with willingness to explore a third (heavyweight). Yet out of all those divisions, the UFC can’t find him an opponent. It’s problematic for a 41-year-old to hit these kind of wait-and-see impasses.

The sticking point is that Henderson wants a guy of similar projection, somebody with a couple of wins in a row and title momentum. Those are scarce right now in the divisions Henderson dabbles in. If Henderson could make welterweight, he’d find the kind of guys he’s talking about. People like Carlos Condit, who has an interim belt he doesn’t know what to do with. Or Jake Ellenberger, who fits that bill, too. To fight those types, Henderson would have to fast like a yogi for as long as it would take to wait out Jones/Evans in April. In other words, fat chance.

At light heavyweight (his obvious preference), there’s Machida, who’s lost three of his last four bouts. But Machida’s in his own purgatory -- and even then he’s become a pretty attractive “why not” proposition for people in better positions to consider. Henderson apparently is. And there’s also the winner of Ryan Bader/Quinton Jackson, which happens on Feb. 26 in Japan at UFC 144. If the UFC could book a quick turnaround fight with the winner there and jibe up the schedules to the Jones/Evans bout, Henderson would do it.

Again, though, that’s all a dice throw.

Yet aside from a Mauricio Rua rematch, that’s about all there is -- and a Rua rematch would feel too much like déjà vu. How haunting would it be to sign on for that fight just in time for Evans to go down with an injury, just like last time? Never mind the memorable fight they put on, had Henderson waited a week before signing on for Rua at UFC 139, he’d already have fought Jon Jones at UFC 140 in Toronto. That stays in Henderson’s mind as much as the experience with Rua.

So who else is there? Henderson has made it clear he doesn’t want to go back down to middleweight unless it’s for a rematch with Anderson Silva -- which leaves heavyweight, a division that Henderson would never balk at fighting in so long as it could be perceived as fan friendly. Unfortunately, not a lot of fights make sense there, either (read: virtually none).

Pat Barry has Lavar Johnson in his sights, and Cheick Kongo is fighting Mark Hunt in Japan. Stefan Struve? Doesn’t seem a big enough name for Henderson. All the elite names (Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem, Frank Mir, Cain Velasquez) have fights already. And besides, as Henderson said, “none of those guys wants to fight me, anyway.” Daniel Cormier stares at his phone most days saying, “why won’t you ring, why won’t you ring?” Shane Carwin is still a mile down the calendar from coming back. The only name that could be intriguing at all would be Fabricio Werdum, a smaller heavyweight who shares a distinction with Henderson of having defeated Fedor Emelianenko.

It would be a cameo, but in a world of very few alternatives, it might be enough to pique Henderson’s interest.

Otherwise, the options for a marquee fight are very limited for Henderson right now, and matchmaker Joe Silva and Dana White are throwing up their hands with what to do. So is Henderson. Will he wait? Will he fight? Seems like a good time to meet up, put some headshots on the wall, and throw some darts.

Or, at very least, for the UFC and Dan Henderson to have a talk.

For Carlos Condit and the UFC, the reasons to wait for Georges St. Pierre are obvious.

St. Pierre is the champ, after all, and fighting him is still the holy grail for any welterweight who harbors ambitions of being recognized as the best in the world. The road to any legitimate 170-pound title has run through St. Pierre since 2006 and it will continue to do so until someone can knock him off his pedestal in a way that doesn’t feel fleeting or fluky.

For Condit, that’s a chance you absolutely cannot pass up. The “Natural Born Killer’s” rise from WEC titlist to middle-of-the-pack UFC contributor to now interim UFC champion is a feel-good story of the highest order. Perhaps more than anyone, his career path was disrupted when Nick Diaz took a rubber mallet to the organization’s welterweight plans. Condit must have felt a little like the last kid picked for playground basketball as he got shuffled through a series of prospective opponents and possible dates while the UFC tried (unsuccessfully) to manage Diaz’s various peculiarities.

Now that Condit has triumphed over all of that and secured a fight with St. Pierre, it’s perfectly understandable that he wouldn’t want to risk losing it. Who would?

For matchmakers and number-crunchers, Condit versus GSP is certainly the most lucrative welterweight matchup the UFC could promote this year, or at least the next best thing, now that any immediate hopes for St. Pierre-Diaz have been dashed. Any time you can get a sniff of some actual competition for the most dominant 170-pound fighter in history -- who, we are continually reminded, is also your best pay-per-view draw -- I suppose you do everything you can to make that bout happen.

Feels like kind of a bummer though, doesn’t it?

Here we have the most intriguing weight class in the UFC building an unprecedented sense of momentum, a talent pool that rivals that of the vaunted lightweight division, and now we have to push the pause button on the title picture for the next 10 months.

Any way you slice it, the decision to keep Condit out pending St. Pierre’s recovery is logical, but it’s not exactly ideal.

Why even crown an interim champion if he’s just going to cool his heels for almost an entire year? Isn’t the point of having an interim champ that he’s available to defend the belt while the real champ is out? And if he can't put the title on the line against anyone other than St. Pierre, doesn’t that make Condit more No. 1 contender than champion, interim or otherwise?

Condit made just one Octagon appearance during 2011 and if he waits on GSP until November, it will mean he’s fought just twice in the last 16 months. That’s an awful lot of down time and very few paydays for a guy who will turn 28 in April and who might now sit idly while the most potentially lucrative year of his fighting career passes into history.

It would be one thing if there wasn’t anybody else for Condit to fight, but that’s certainly not the case in the welterweight division right now. Watching Jake Ellenberger rough up Diego Sanchez on Wednesday night, it was hard not to imagine what a five-rounder between "The Juggernaut" and a technical wizard like Condit might look like. Or, for that matter, to wonder if Ellenberger’s mix of physical strength, wrestling prowess and punching power might actually make him the most intriguing matchup for St. Pierre.

Now, we may never know. As it stands, the UFC is holding the line that Condit will likely wait for GSP, that Ellenberger could face the winner of Johny Hendricks’ May meeting with Josh Koscheck and that -- for all intents and purposes -- the welterweight title may as well not exist until this winter.

And yeah, that might be the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

UFC president Dana White all but confirmed that Jake Ellenberger had not done enough to earn an interim welterweight title shot with Carlos Condit at UFC on Fuel on Wednesday night. More »

OMAHA, Neb. -- Don’t look now, but the UFC welterweight division is quietly making a case for the promotion’s premier weight class.

Rising 170-pound prospect Jake Ellenberger made another splash Wednesday, outpointing a very determined Diego Sanchez in an early "Fight of the year" candidate. It was a big win for the 26-year-old and yet another significant fight in the division -- a division that’s been in big need of significant fights in years past.

As of late, this group of 170-pounders hasn’t exactly been raising heart rates. Not long ago, fans clamored for a fight between Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch not only because of the "teammate versus teammate" angle, but because there weren’t many intriguing options left for each of them.

Dan Hardy earned a title shot in 2010 based on a couple split decisions and a knockout of Rory Markham. Jake Shields earned one a year later for being really good in a different division, fighting for a different promotion.

Not only did the weight class fail in numerous attempts to dethrone champion Georges St. Pierre, for 33 straight rounds, it failed to earn a 10-9 score against him.

Not to say the division has been downright awful, but as far as areas where the UFC needed new blood, it was near the top.

It’s safe to say that new blood has arrived.

Ellenberger represents one of the most intriguing future opponents to St. Pierre. Ahead of him on the division’s ladder is interim champion Carlos Condit. Around him are Johny Hendricks, Rory MacDonald and Nick Diaz. Below him are still Josh Koscheck, John Fitch, Thiago Alves, Martin Kampmann and Jake Shields.

Basically, iron sharpens iron. And there’s finally a ton of iron at 170 pounds.

“There’s no easy fight, that’s for sure,” Ellenberger said. “[The division] is stacked with young, hungry guys. I’ve been that guy for awhile.”

The influx of new talent at welterweight has more than likely killed any shot of a super fight between St. Pierre and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva -- but if that’s a casualty the UFC and its fans should be able to live with.

This division has played a major part in the organization since Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta purchased the company in 2001. Even though it may have never eclipsed the light heavyweight division in terms of popularity, it was widely viewed as arguably the deepest in talent.

“The welterweight division has been a massive division for us since the first day,” UFC president Dana White said. “From Pat Miletich to Matt Hughes to Carlos Newton.”

For the first time in years, the welterweight division is capable of generating the type of excitement it drew during those years. Part of that excitement comes from the perception one of these guys can beat St. Pierre.

“This guy [Ellenberger], in my opinion, is tougher than St. Pierre,” Sanchez said. “He has a better chin than GSP. This guy is strong and he’s a warrior.”

Jake Ellenberger looked at Joe, his fraternal twin, and made a promise.

In the grand scheme of things, how much would a win over Mike Pyle mean considering what they were up against? Still, Jake, moments from stepping into the Octagon, offered it up.

“This one’s for you,” he said.

“I remember when he went into the cage for that one,” Joe said. “I did not envy Mike Pyle.”

Ellenberger blasted Pyle to the tune of a second round technical knockout. It was, after a distinguished run outside the Octagon, his first UFC-branded win in two tries. Half a year later, Jake followed up by stopping John Howard. Then in 2011, he outpointed Carlos Rocha and scored finishes over Sean Pierson and Jake Shields.

Technically speaking, this is the path Ellenberger, 26, has taken to Wednesday’s fight in Omaha, Neb., against Diego Sanchez. But that misses most of why he returns home to fight for the first time since 2005, a win away from title consideration in the UFC.

“Every time I get in there, I'm not just fighting for myself,” said Ellenberger, 26-5. “I feel like I'm fighting for my brother, my family. It's so much more than that. It makes you think about why you're doing it.”

“The Juggernaut” would give everything up for his brother’s situation to be different. He freely admits it. The fact is Joe Ellenberger, a heck of a mixed martial artist and wrestler in his own right, has what doctors described as a “one in a million” disease. It took Joe a few weeks to learn how to pronounce paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, and longer to get diagnosed.

When the call came, Joe was walking to wrestling practice. The voice on the other end asked him to come in, sit down. They finally knew what was wrong. But Ellenberger, a coach at Division-2 Nebraska-Kearney, where he competed on the school’s first national championship wrestling squad, demanded to know right then what the problem was. He wanted to know why his stomach was swollen and painful. Why fatigue knocked him out 12 hours at a time. Why he felt awful through his training camp in the summer of 2009. Through all the working out and wrestling, he couldn't remember the last time he wasn't tired. This was normal, or at least that's how he reconciled what he was feeling at the time.

Then he thought it might be mononucleosis -- which it wasn’t. Blood work came back “totally whacked out.” Doctors in Kearney couldn’t explain why Joe’s urine was cola-colored. Neither could anyone in Omaha. If the Mayo Clinic didn’t find a diagnosis, Joe Ellenberger was destined for medical textbooks. So he just wanted to know.

Enough with the traveling, with having having blood drawn every other day. Plus he didn't want to burden his family anymore. So, he put his foot down. The voice from the Mayo Clinic told him.

“Then it hit me,” Joe said. “This isn't 'how do you solve it.' This is 'how do you stay alive after you're 30-years old.’ I finally took a step back and realized I was so busy wanting to train my guys in wrestling, and train with my brother that I didn’t take a step back to look and evaluate what was going on.”

The Ellenbergers learned paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, an extremely rare disorder affecting about 8,000 Americans, is terrific at killing red blood cells. Doctors told Joe he'd never participate in a contact sport again the rest of his life.

"You may as well kill me right now," was his first thought. He was understandably lost.

“

Every time I get in there, I'm not just fighting for myself. I feel like I'm fighting for my brother, my family. It's so much more than that. It makes you think about why you're doing it.

” -- Jake Ellenberger

“I felt the most bad for Jake,” Joe said. “I know how much it means to him for me to be able to train with him. It's the brother thing. Even when he's going with good guys, no one motivates or pushes him like when he's going with me.”

This was a month before Jake dedicated his effort against Pyle.

“There was a lot of emotion,” the welterweight recalled a couple weeks ago following a training session that included his brother. “A lot of anger and frustration. Things that are hard to deal with. And there still is a lot to deal with, but he's just such a positive person, such a good leader; definitely somebody I look up to. He deals with it a lot better than I do, that's for sure.”

Joe was in damage control leading up to the Pyle fight. The best he could do was take over-the-counter folic acid, the stuff pregnant women take to boost their red blood cell count. He was prescribed a blood thinner to help prevent clotting, which is among the most immediate dangers posed by PNH. Then he started looking for solutions. He hoped “taking six or seven pills a day” would be enough to take care of it.

It wasn’t.

Just when Joe would have needed it most, he found Soliris -- the world’s single most expensive drug, according to Forbes, at $409,500 per year.

Through a specialist, the Ellenbergers were connected with the National Organization for Rare Disorders, which helped him with the cost.

This is why Jake Ellenberger, ranked No. 4 at 170 pounds by ESPN.com, will say four or five times over the course of a 20-minute interview that he’s not interested in wasting time. He’ll say that means he’s an all-or-nothing guy with a goal to be the best welterweight in the world. But perhaps his time is not what he’s most concerned about.

"We wanted to find out every day who's the tougher brother,” Jake said. “Everything was a competition.”

Jake, Joe and Adam (their older brother by 13 months) competed through broken windows, holes in the walls and multiple stitches. That was life in the Ellenberger household, and, as if there could be any other way, it continues to be today. Only the opponents are different.

Joe will work Jake’s corner Wednesday night in the main event at the Omaha Civic Auditorium -- business as usual for them that will double as a celebration in front of friends and family.

“He is the reason why I'm in this sport," Jake said of his twin.

It could also be said, then, that Joe Ellenberger, a lightweight who like his brother was unbeaten until fight 13 -- and yes, he’s scheduled to fight on the Titan Fighting 21 card in Kansas City March 2 -- is the reason Jake Ellenberger finds himself primed for a potential championship run in the UFC.

By his own admission, Diego Sanchez was displaced, unfocused and very nearly down and out just a couple of years ago.

Now, the newly rebranded “Dream” can add another adjective to that list: Overlooked.

Few people are giving Sanchez much chance of pulling the upset on Wednesday when he meets Jake Ellenberger in the welterweight main event of UFC on Fuel 1. Oddsmakers see him as more than a 2-to-1 underdog to the streaking Ellenberger, who’ll be fighting in his hometown of Omaha, Neb., and is currently riding high on a wave of publicity after a first-round knockout of former Strikeforce champion Jake Shields in September.

People are already putting Ellenberger in the front row of potential challengers for interim champion Carlos Condit -- depending, of course, on whether or not Georges St. Pierre’s injured knee heals at a pace deemed acceptable by company brass. All Ellenberger needs is one more win, over a fighter who has been inconsistent and slowed by his own difficulties (both physical and mental) recently.

For Sanchez, the stakes are somewhat less concrete. Unlike Ellenberger, he may not be a single win away from a title shot, but -- at 30 years old and 27 fights deep in his MMA career -- he needs this fight to prove he can still hang with the elite at 170 pounds.

The “Ultimate Fighter” Season 1 winner has been back training with Greg Jackson’s vaunted MMA team since 2010, but is still very much mired in the process of proving he’s returned to full strength after a couple of lost years elsewhere.

He split with Jackson in 2007 after the Albuquerque-based trainer began working with St. Pierre, who, at the time, was the dominant titlist in the weight class where Sanchez had championship aspirations. What followed were difficult times, where he says he bounced around gyms in southern California and New Mexico and succumbed to the allures of drugs and alcohol. He also vacillated between two weight classes, suffered three of his four career losses (including a career-defining beating at the hands of B.J. Penn at UFC 107) and has made veiled references to losing $150,000 to a bad investment deal, running afoul of the IRS in the process.

Sanchez is 2-0 since reuniting with Jackson, but perhaps because one of those wins was a razor-thin decision many believed rightly should have gone to Martin Kampmann, people aren’t quite buying into the renaissance just yet.

A victory, or at least a good showing, against Ellenberger could go a long way to changing their minds.

Even if Sanchez can’t grab the upset over the hard-hitting “Juggernaut” (who arguably does most of the same things Sanchez does, only better) it’s imperative that he doesn’t get run over in this fight the way Shields did five months ago. If not an outright victory, he at least needs a repeat of the too-close-to-call battle he had with Kampmann to prove his brightest days are still ahead of him.

If Sanchez were to somehow force his way back into the title picture, it could present something of a logistical nightmare -- no pun intended -- for the Jackson camp, as Sanchez, Condit and St. Pierre are all teammates there. Jackson has already said he’ll recuse himself and let his assistant coaches handle prefight preparations for Condit versus GSP. At least St. Pierre can do most of his prep at TriStar Gym in Montreal. No telling how Jackson’s crew might handle having Condit and Sanchez in the same room together.

At this point though, that seems like a good problem to aim for if you're Sanchez.

And he’s a guy who already knows a thing or two about problems.

It’s been a whirlwind week in the UFC’s alt-title scene -- and it begins and ends with Nick Diaz.

For all his warts, Diaz had achieved a sort of cult status before his fight with Carlos Condit at UFC 143, and the terms of endearment were his alone. Innocent people who vaguely associate cannabis with the Donner party of the 1840s were starting to find warmth in his mean mugging. New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning was picking him to beat Condit, saying to the extent of his knowledge, “he’s a tough guy.”

This happens to be the universal perception that we tinker with. By the time Diaz’s second-grade teacher was cameoing on UFC Primetime, we were seeing Diaz in a different light. Or, younger in the same light. Either way, always a tough guy.

The thing everybody was growing to appreciate was this: Here was a truly unyielding person. The subtext was even better: Here was a human being.

None of that has changes in the aftermath of Diaz testing positive for marijuana metabolites after UFC 143. It’s the second time he’s tested positive in the state of Nevada, with the first occurring after he gogoplata’d Takanori Gomi at Pride 33 in 2007. That time, his THC levels were three-and-a-half times over the legal limit. If you are a fan of Nick Diaz, you are a fan of everything that goes into Nick Diaz, whether it’s heart, drive, contradiction or exotic subtances.

And if you were a fan of his a week ago and you aren’t today, you’re verging on hypocrisy.

That’s because this latest positive test isn’t so much news as it is consistency. Our perceptions may be fickle, but Diaz is still Diaz. His image doesn’t get hurt too badly for getting popped for marijuana again, even if his career spirals as a result. It’s not considered a performance-enhancing drug (though this can be contested); it’s a lifestyle choice that Diaz has never hid from. It’s illegal, and that’s what matters to governing bodies. What might not matter is the anticipated year-long suspension that the NSAC may impose. When asked, younger brother Nate Diaz texted ESPN.com that Nick intends to stay retired.

As crazy as it sounds, maybe Diaz really, truly is “through with this s---.” It would be par for the course for a guy who can’t be corralled into such nuisances as protocol and rules.

And with Diaz out of the picture, the welterweight division just as suddenly opens back up. Now it’s Condit’s decision to wait on Georges St. Pierre to fully recover from a torn ACL -- and GSP says that could be by November -- or defend the strap. Since Condit fought only once in 2011, it’s hard to imagine him catering to St. Pierre’s timetable, particularly when you look at how quickly he jumped at the Diaz rematch that was not to be.

Who benefits the most?

It could be Johny Hendricks, who has two things on his side -- timing and merit. It doesn’t hurt that he knocks people out with his big left hand, like he did to Jon Fitch at UFC 141. But Hendricks, who is riding a three-fight win streak, is ready to roll. So is Condit.

The monkey wrench could be Jake Ellenberger, who fights Diego Sanchez on Wednesday in Omaha. Should Ellenberger win, he too would have a case for a title shot. Remember that Condit and Ellenberger fought in 2009, a split decision so close that it would best Diaz-Condit in controversy if only the stakes had been as high. A rematch would do better business than no fight at all.

If Hendricks-Condit is made, there’s a chance that the UFC looks at Josh Koscheck-Ellenberger. Before Ellenberger signed on to fight Jake Shields, he was publically calling out Koscheck. This could be tabbed a No. 1 contender bout, even as St. Pierre rolls back into the fold.

The bottom line is, the division opens up to contenders that a couple of days ago it looked closed off to. And whomever it is that gets that shot can thank Diaz, who is the game’s greatest paradox.

For a guy who refuses to yield, at this point that’s all he can do.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Moments after he beat Nick Diaz on the scorecards at UFC 143, Condit said he wanted to take some time to contemplate his next step. Would he take another fight before Georges St. Pierre returns and defend the interim belt, or simply, you know…wait it out? He needed to think about that.

Turns out Carlos Condit’s contemplative mode lasts about 48 hours.

On Monday Condit’s manager Malki Kawa was telling people they had no interest in a rematch. By Tuesday, Condit had interest in a rematch. By Tuesday night, the rematch was common knowledge for the nearly two million people who follow Dana White’s Twitter feed. What happened in the interstices is company business and, though the deal isn’t signed yet, somehow Condit must have found incentive to dangle his barely broken-in placeholder belt over Diaz’s head. The bruises haven’t even had time to heal yet.

And Condit’s 180-degree turn is nothing next to Diaz’s, who fought, thought he won, lost, then retired. Now he’s in the same spot he was in before that disappointing sequence. This is what happens when you put live microphones on mood swings. Yet for the record, a few days does not constitute a comeback. This isn’t Randy Couture. This was a powersulk that paid off, by a guy who will never be swayed by something as misguided as public opinion. You think he lost? Diaz has expletives for what you think.

Meanwhile St. Pierre, who loomed over Las Vegas last weekend like a French-Canadian Zeus, might get what he’s been hoping for: A rematch between the two guys chasing him. (If only Diaz can avoid the banana peel this time through!). And Josh Koscheck, who was the first guy that Dana White stuck in the door as Diaz made his way for the exits, could be headed back to the “wait and see” game.

Like sands through the hourglass…so are the days of welterweight contention.

But all the “Dana wants to give the fans what they want” aside, think about the ripple effect that this could cause. For instance, a rematch essentially hijacks the welterweight division for 2012, much the same as Frankie Edgar/Gray Maynard closed down the lightweight division to all contenders in 2011. If a sequel happens in summer, and the winner gets St. Pierre around November to marry up the belts, that means Johny Hendricks, Koscheck and Jake Ellenberger will likely be a year away from a title shot. And, as time waits on no man (and bills don’t pay themselves), they’ll be turned on each other.

If St. Pierre (and Diaz) get their way in this thing, that means a lot of other guys didn’t.

Yet in the theatrical sense of drama, Condit/Diaz II is the fight to make. Depending on your couch criteria, you either saw Diaz coming forward and swinging switches (as he does) or you saw Condit making himself evasive, counterprogramming Diaz’s hit show with the old stick-and-move. It was close enough to divide fans down the middle, which makes for something left unresolved.

So what happens if the fight is made? Will Greg Jackson’s methodical brilliance win out, or will Cesar Gracie’s sic-em-boy star pupil tweak that attack? (Indeed, is that even a possibility?). What happens if Diaz chooses to react, rather than stalk forward? Does the fifth round, when Diaz took Condit to the ground, become the blueprint for the newly added five rounds?

For whatever it’s worth, Condit likes his chances enough to say “why not” to a rematch he stands nothing much to gain from. That says something about Condit and his love of fighting. And for all the accusations and hurt feelings over the weekend, two things could be made clear in a rematch.

Condit isn’t running. And Diaz isn’t walking.

There were those who thought that Nick Diaz beat Carlos Condit at UFC 143, pointing to his constant pursuit as evidence. Diaz stalked, mocked and talked. He was "Stalkton." He was exactly who we thought he was.

Problem was, Condit wasn’t.

Condit went into the nastiest kind of retreat, one that stuck and ducked and moved and circled and landed leg kicks and counter shots with isolated ease. Isolated? Wait -- wasn’t Condit supposed to stand in front of Diaz and trade, looking for that big curtain closer? Weren’t chins supposed to come into question? Wasn’t Condit supposed to be tailor-made for the high-volume striking assault that Diaz is known for?

Condit had a mute button for the volume. He was either brilliant, or he was a high stakes version of Kalib Starnes, depending on your bias. In all circles, it was clear that he consciously avoided a brawl. And this is where feelings got hurt. In the end, Condit wasn’t about meeting bloodthirsty expectations so much as winning the fight, and he executed his game plan brilliantly. Good for (or shame on) him. Now he’s the interim welterweight champion, and don’t expect apologies from Albuquerque.

Yet for all the scorecard dissection that ensued, nobody was as disappointed or disillusioned as Diaz, who sort of retired right after. A totally impromptu retirement -- just a hundred seconds after a stubborn war he could never incite.

“I don’t need this s---,” he said to Joe Rogan.

He said he’d continue to help train his brother, Nate, but as for him and the whole pack of incompetent judges and all the pressure-filled, bustling hate? Devil take it. He doesn’t need the racket.

Which we all of course took with a grain of salt.

Nobody really thinks that the 28-year-old Diaz is walking. He does need the racket. All the dude has done since his earliest memories is mean mug whoever gets in his grill, and fight. He went so far as to balance out the street menace early by funneling it into jiu-jitsu in his formative years. These days, he is as much Cesar Gracie as Cesar Gracie. Diaz is known for his fiendish work ethic, and he trains compulsively. It’s what he does. It’s how he copes, and how he vents. We like it because we see such focused discipline coming out of unknown wilds. Maybe more than anybody, this game is Diaz’s lifeblood.

Only it’s not a game to Diaz, it’s fighting -- and that’s why judge’s scorecards become absurd to such a literalist.

This last distinction is why he’ll return to the cage before long. The old Dana White proverb to “never leave it in the hands of the judges” will resonate in him and work as kindling. Losing that way won’t sit well in the 209. White senses it, just like you and I. In fact, White was already dangling Josh Koscheck out there as a possible next opponent in the postfight news conference. Emotions got the better of Diaz, who has never filtered the urge to say what’s on his mind like typical professionals.

It helps that there are possibilities all over the place. Realistically, with Georges St. Pierre on the shelf until something like November, a rematch with Condit isn’t out of the question. Neither is fighting a Johny Hendricks or a Jon Fitch or a Rory MacDonald to avenge his brother’s loss. Or maybe Jake Ellenberger, who would love nothing better than to stand and trade heat with Diaz. How about rematch with Diego Sanchez, who knows the buttons to push to get Diaz’s chest puffing back out?

There will be suitors, some of them equipped with the kinds of mouths that will get to Diaz.

But that’s all window dressing. The thing is, Diaz doesn’t have it in him to quit, and there’s still too much left unresolved and just too many reasons for him to walk away.

And for those who have paid attention to Diaz’s competitiveness over the years, the biggest might be this -- he simply can’t.

Jon Fitch was forever the No. 2 welterweight in the field, even if he was treated like an incredibly successful banality the entire time.

So what happens when Fitch, who never loses, gets knocked out by a guy with fresh marketability and a mean left hand? Does knocking out a perennial No. 2 deliver Johny Hendricks to front of the line for the next crack at the interim belt?

That’s either very simple or very complicated in the "up in the air" welterweight division.

Start with the premise of just where the UFC’s 170-pound division is right now. Next week, a placeholder champion will be named while Georges St. Pierre (who’s been on top for almost four years) recovers from knee surgery. The fight will be between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz, both of whom were booked for dates with St. Pierre before circumstances turned them on each other. After that it’s Jake Ellenberger, who is fighting Diego Sanchez in Omaha on Feb. 15, and Josh Koscheck, who just had a title shot a little over a year ago. Koscheck is set to fight Mike Pierce at UFC 143.

Given the rapidly changing scene, doesn’t Hendricks -- who already beat Pierce and then Fitch in a dozen seconds -- look like the next challenger to the newly accessible interim belt?

He thinks so. And he knows exactly how precious the situation he’s in right this second is.

“I’ve been telling everybody I really want the winner of [Diaz/Condit],” Hendricks told ESPN.com while in Chicago. “You don’t get this opportunity too often. Now that I’ve done it in the ring, I’ve got to do it outside the ring. If I don’t promote myself outside the ring -- I mean, there are great fights going on and now they’re happening almost every week. You can be forgotten. So if I don’t say in the news that I want that interim title shot -- there’s a fight this weekend in the 170 class, and [if Koscheck or Pierce] does good, I might get bumped. So I always got to be out there making my case. I want my goal. My goal is to be UFC champ some day, and I know I’m right there. I just need that shot.”

Hendricks has never been one to toot his own horn across media platforms or bad mouth the guy with the strap just to generate hype (they don’t call him Happy Bearded Guy for nothing). Yet since debuting at UFC 101, he has won seven of eight fights and four of them by TKO or KO. His left hand is his volume. He said after knocking out Fitch that “the good lord blessed me with a left hand,” and it’s no longer in dispute.

What might be up for dispute is whether Ellenberger -- who is looking to make it six in a row in the UFC with Sanchez -- might catapult over him.

As far as Hendricks is concerned, it shouldn’t. The Fitch knockout, as quick and anticlimactic and unforeseen as it was to witnessing parties, made him an obvious choice to fight the winner of Diaz/Condit. The timing would mesh schedule-wise for matching up with the next week’s interim title winner. And if he has to confess everything, the truth is Hendricks doesn’t want to roll the dice on fighting an Ellenberger or a Sanchez or a Koscheck in a title eliminator unless he’s made to.

“Here’s the thing. Unless the UFC says, ‘Johny, you have to fight -- we want you to get a shot at the title, but we have some questions, and you need another one first,’ then of course I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me. I’m going to do what they say.

“But if it’s up to me, I’d much rather go for the UFC interim belt. I’ve seen so many people who are right there, right there to get that shot and something happens ... it never fails, something happens, and they don’t win. And then it takes them three or four fights to get back, which is a year to a year-and-a-half back, and that’s if everything lines up perfectly.”

Not that he lacks confidence against any of those guys, but Hendricks feels he’s done enough to avoid unnecessary trappings. And after letting his fists do the talking, he says he’s going to go full throttle into making his case. The man they now call “Bigg Rigg” is about to launch the happiest campaign to get the title shot. And he started marketing himself by explaining to me that he was going to start marketing himself.

“You’ve got to,” he says. “The best example is Chael [Sonnen]. He’ll do it outside the [Octagon], and also sometimes in the [Octagon]. But if you can sell yourself in the ring, the less you have to do it outside the ring. I don’t want to be that kind of guy, like Chael. He does it awesome, but that’s not me.”

This is as good a time as any for a guy like Hendricks to quietly set up that next big left. And whether it’s Diaz or Condit, it doesn’t matter -- so long as they’re carrying the belt, he’ll continue to be the Happy Bearded Guy.

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