ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

No matter how stunning Johny Hendricks' 12-second knockout of Jon Fitch was in December, stopping the second best welterweight on the planet won't mean much if the southpaw can't also defeat Josh Koscheck on Saturday.

"I have to win this fight to reach that goal [of becoming UFC champion]," said Hendricks, a 28-year-old two-time NCAA champion wrestler for Oklahoma State University, whose life essentially boils down to a never-ending series of high-bar scenarios (out-of-competition weight bumps not included).

Technically speaking, Hendricks needs a win in the co-main event of UFC's third event on Fox to be eligible for a shot at fighting for the welterweight strap.

Carlos Condit is next in line, of course, and he's chosen to sit out while Georges St. Pierre recovers from major knee surgery, which won't happen fully until later this year. So, presuming he wins, Hendricks (12-1) will find himself in the midst of a hurry-up-and-wait scenario.

Having won two in a row since St. Pierre busted up his face with jabs at UFC 124, Koscheck, 34, should provide a solid test for Hendricks at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. The former title contender has the wrestling and athletic ability to, at a minimum, neutralize Hendricks' considerable game, which manifests through a mix of technical wrestling and power punches.

"If he wants to go back to it, if he wants to turn it into a wresting match, that's fine," Hendricks said. "I've prepared myself where that's one thing I want to see: How good my takedown defense is; how good my takedowns are. If I get to see it in this fight, great. If not, that's OK, too."

Koscheck hasn't suggested what his in-cage approach will be. Hendricks claims to be fine not knowing. Yet temptation must center on a knockout similar to the one that put away Fitch. Hendricks is self-aware enough to realize that honing in on a spectacular finish is the quickest way not to be on the right side of one.

"If the knockout comes, it comes," he said. "All I want to do is hit you about 85 percent [of potential power] and as quick as possible. The knockouts are great, but they don't happen very often. There's a reason why. If you go into a fight thinking you're going to knock someone out, for one, you're not going to train very hard. You're going to be so fixed on that by the second and third round you'll have lost confidence. By that time you may have lost the fight. I'm going in with all aspects of the fight open."

As the match has been broken down, most pundits allow Koscheck an advantage in overall speed. Hendricks, it turns out, is not overly impressed by Koscheck, suggesting he’s every bit as fast as his fellow wrestler.

The pair have been relatively quiet in advance of the fight. Hendricks is not a trash talker and Koscheck hasn’t shelled out the same sort of verbal malevolence reserved for most other opponents over the years.

Still, Hendricks pointed to a pair of barbs that stood out to him.

First, Koscheck’s contention that the win over Fitch was “a lucky punch.”

Second, that Hendricks is “fat.”

On the former, Hendricks sighs. He’s been telling people he’d rather have luck than no luck at all.

And on the latter, the point is conceded.

“I am fat,” he said. “I love my food.”

Especially the “junk” variety. Not to mention a few beers from time to time. All of which leads Hendricks, a true good ol’ boy, to blow up between bouts. He weighed 215 pounds following the Fitch bout, which is typical. But he’s in shape now and, as competition nears, that’s all that matters.

Hendricks knows how to win and make good on goals. He’s managed to do both his entire life. By knocking out Fitch "people got to know who I am,” he said, which was as much a milestone in his MMA career as it was a stepping stone toward his ultimate objective. Adding Koscheck to the list would get him that much closer.

NEW YORK -- For as stacked as the UFC 146 card appears for Memorial Day weekend, it’s really two title fights (Urijah Faber/Dominick Cruz and Chael Sonnen/Anderson Silva) and a pack of glitzy non-consequential match-ups (Cung Le/Rich Franklin and Forrest Griffin/Tito Ortiz).

Not so for New Jersey and this weekend’s free UFC on FOX 3 card. No belts will change hands, but situations are in play. Complicated situations. Theoretical ones. Titles dangling in the balance, right there for some and just out of reach for others. And there is, of course, much obfuscation.

For example: If Nate Diaz capitalizes on his broadcast television main event and downs Jim Miller, he is essentially guaranteed a title shot at 155 pounds. However, with Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar fighting for the title in August, that shot might come in a wintry month like December. That’s a long time to wait for a guy who A.) fights for money, B.) likes fighting and C.) has a nice head of momentum. When asked if he’d wait in that situation at Thursday’s news conference, Diaz said simply, “I have a fight on Saturday.”

This drew a New York cheer. Diaz, for all his volume in punching, is a man of few words.

If Jim Miller beats Diaz, on the other hand, he isn’t guaranteed anything. Rather, he is guaranteed to be cheering for Frankie Edgar at UFC 150 when Edgar fights Henderson, because in that case Miller would potentially get to fight Edgar (his erstwhile training partner/friend).

Got it?

Here’s what Miller had to say when asked if he’s confused by Diaz getting a title shot with a win (even though he’s 3-3 in his last six lightweight bouts) while he (10-2 as a lightweight in the UFC) won’t necessarily:

“You know, honestly, it doesn’t matter to me right now. I’ve got a fight in two days, and that’s where my focus is. From doing that [10-2 record] and having that seven-win stretch and dealing with the rematches in this division, it really cemented that things change -- and things happen. So I’m not going to sit here and try and predict what’ll happen with a win or with a loss. I’m just focused on the fight itself, and after that, then it’s time to speculate about the next fight.”

If he won’t speculate, we sure will, and we’ll add a name to the mix: Anthony Pettis.

Pettis, who is a quasi-No. 1 contender, will be coming back to full health some time in the summer. Logic would say that the winner of Diaz/Miller will end up fighting Pettis to establish a true No. 1 contender, while Henderson/Edgar II plays out.

Meanwhile, the co-main event has its own wild set of conditions. Should Johny Hendricks beat Josh Koscheck, he is the No. 1 contender for a title fight. Problem is, once again, that Georges St. Pierre and Carlos Condit are likely fighting in November to settle up the permanent and interim belts. There’s no way that Hendricks will want to wait for that to play out for a spring 2013 title fight.

Yet if Koscheck wins, he will have to pull for Condit to beat St. Pierre to have a word in the title conversation.

Confused? You should be. If we learned anything from the final prefight news conference, it’s this -- the UFC doesn’t want repetition. Koscheck/St. Pierre and Henderson/Miller happened too soon ago to happen again. The UFC craves new blood.

It’s the most complicated contender-type card that ever was, and it’s going down Saturday night in New Jersey.

First UFC "super fight" in January?

In the post news conference scrum, a media member asked Dana White about a potential fight card at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, a venue which can hold 100,000 people.

White said all that flirtation about holding an event there was not only real, but is a serious possibility. He also alluded to a big January card that could potentially be so massive.

“We’re always looking for a potential big fight,” White said. “We’ve always wanted to do a fight, and we’ve been talking to [Jerry] Jones and his crew about doing a fight down in Dallas Cowboys Stadium, but we need a fight big enough to do it. The last fight that I was going to try and make there was Brock [Lesnar] and Fedor [Emelianenko].”

There is potentially a fight out there that’s big enough.

Running through the timelines of “super fight” candidates for a place like Dallas Cowboys Stadium, or a second event at the Rogers Centre in Toronto (or at the old, reliable stand-by in Las Vegas), one could envision a Jon Jones/Anderson Silva match-up at least being discussed.

Think about it. If Jones beats Dan Henderson in September, that would be four months ahead of January -- perfect for the turn around. Anderson Silva fights in July. Should be beat Chael Sonnen for his record 10th title defense, there would be only one way to raise the ante -- and it wouldn’t be to take on Mark Munoz or Hector Lombard.

It would be to fight Jones, who’d have tidied his own division up just in time. Is that what the UFC has in mind?

“I don’t know,” White said. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what we end up putting together.”

New York state of mind

By now, everyone knows about the MMA ban in New York, even as we make our way through open-minded 2012. This is why the UFC dangles its product just across the Hudson River -- to reinforce that all notions of “human cockfighting” are antiquated and hyperbolic. Whether the sport hasn’t been sanctioned in the Empire State is about “gangsters” in the Culinary Union (as Dana White says) or something less ominous, it depends on whom you talk to.

But when MMA does finally get legalized in New York, the UFC plans on doing it big.

“When we finally do break through and do a big event here, I think the event at Madison Square Garden that we do will be huge, and it’s be a great time to pull off a Fan Expo here in New York,” White said. “I think it would be huge.”

In the meantime, those in New York who want to catch MMA in a live setting must go underground. Or, underwater. For MMA, there’s light at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel, across the way in East Rutherford, N.J., where the UFC will once again mock New York with the one thing it doesn’t have.

Over the last year or so, the UFC welterweight division has unexpectedly become a young man’s game.

If we’d had to guess back in the halcyon days of, say, UFC 124, it might have seemed a good bet that Georges St. Pierre would’ve cleaned out his weight class by now; that we might be talking about him moving up a division and about a potential superfight against Anderson Silva being in the immediate offing.

As it turned out, nothing could be further from the truth.

Due to St. Pierre’s lengthy injury layoff and the rapid rise of a new breed of 170-pound challengers, the welterweight ranks have undergone a significant revival since December 2010. That is, since the last time GSP whooped up on Josh Koscheck.

Suddenly, the ESPN.com welterweight top five is stocked with fresh opponents for St. Pierre (whenever he returns), all of them still comfortably in the athletic prime of their mid-to-late 20s: Carlos Condit, Nick Diaz, Jake Ellenberger, Johny Hendricks -- this is their show now.

Thirty-somethings like Koscheck, Jon Fitch and Jake Shields have been relegated to the bottom half of the top 10 rankings. Worse than that, there’s a growing and palpable feeling that their time has passed.

Unless.

Unless.

Unless the division’s original malcontent has anything to say about it.

When Koscheck fights Hendricks on Saturday during the UFC’s third live show on Fox, it’ll likely constitute the 34-year-old veteran’s last real chance to launch himself back into the thick of the 170-pound title hunt. It’s also pretty easy to frame this matchup as exactly what it is: A meeting between the welterweight class’ sturdy old guard and its new wave of exciting young upstarts.

As a guy who has traditionally reveled in the role of villain, perhaps this could be Koscheck’s final opportunity to really stick it to fans, as well.

Even without taking sides, it’s clear that the more interesting way forward for the division at large would be a victory for Hendricks here. After all, whereas we think we’ve already seen the best Koscheck has to offer (it was good, but not quite good enough), Hendricks is the more unproven commodity, and therefore the more interesting one.

We have no idea how Hendricks might fare against St. Pierre and that’s exactly why we like him. Ditto for guys like Condit, Diaz and Ellenberger. On the other hand, we’ve witnessed the French Canadian champion put Koscheck through the wringer twice before, and we have no reason to believe another meeting would be any different.

To a slightly lesser degree, the same goes for Fitch, Shields, Thiago Alves, B.J. Penn and the rest of yesteryear’s top welterweight contenders.

A victory for Hendricks means the division gets to continue the renewal we’ve seen over the last year. It means it can go on being one of the most vibrant and interesting weight classes in the sport. A win for Koscheck obviously wouldn’t undo that entirely, but it would send the 170-pound youth movement staggering a bit.

We should likely stop short of saying a Koscheck victory would be a victory for the old dogs of the welterweight division -- as the man himself would probably remind us, a win for Koscheck is a just a win for Koscheck -- but it certainly would be a significant defeat for one of the guys fight fans are hoping will carry us into the future.

Former top welterweight contender Josh Koscheck has never expressed having any regrets about his decision to part ways earlier this year with American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif.

Instead, he says he's happy with the decision, especially when reflecting on his welterweight title bout with Georges St. Pierre.

Koscheck went five rounds with the champion during their rematch on Dec. 11, 2010, at UFC 124 in Montreal. The two met in August 2007 at UFC 74 -- Koscheck also lost that fight by unanimous decision.

But going the distance a second time with St. Pierre was the only thing Koscheck could take pride in 2010.

He’s won two fights since facing St. Pierre, but that rematch loss remains fresh in Koscheck’s mind. It serves as a constant reminder why leaving AKA was best for him. St. Pierre put a brutal beating on Koscheck. The assault left Koscheck with a broken orbital bone that sidelined him for nearly a year.

A left jab that St. Pierre landed repeatedly on the right side of Koscheck’s face did the damage. It was a punch that Koscheck neither knew how to throw nor defend against.

“I had no clue because I didn’t have anybody to show me the proper techniques,” Koscheck told ESPN.com recently. “Now I have a guy who breaks it down real simple. I’ve gained two years’ worth of knowledge in a few months.”

That guy is boxing coach Tom Semore. With Semore showing him how to throw and slip punches, Koscheck’s confidence has soared.

The welterweight contender, who’s already possesses solid wrestling and Muay Thai skills, now has a well-rounded enough stand-up game to truly become UFC champion.

“I’ve been fighting in UFC for eight years, and I don’t think I knew how to throw a jab correctly until a few months ago,” Koscheck said. “That’s the difference. It’s the techniques I’m learning, learning how to throw a proper punch.

“My speed has improved; I’m faster. I’ve only been working with Tom Semore a few months and I’ve made great improvement.”

At least twice a week, Semore forces Koscheck to slip punches and throw counter shots. There is no brawling during these sessions, something Koscheck willingly did in previous Octagon appearances.

He often got away with slugging it out because most of his opponents also lacked proper boxing skills. St. Pierre was not among them -- and Koscheck paid a heavy price.

But with Semore calling the shots, Koscheck no longer stands in front of his sparring partners throwing wild punches and leaving himself open defensively.

“What I’ve tried to do is give him more tools to use and then he has to be the one to choose it,” Semore told ESPN.com. “People like to talk about his big right hand. Well, right now Josh has power in all of his punches.

“He’s gotten a lot better in every way. His uppercut is great. His left hook is better; everything he does now is much better.”

Semore is a stickler for constant movement -- both head and feet. Koscheck is never allowed to remain stationary, whether on defense or offense.

At Koscheck-owned Dethrone Base Camp gyms in Fresno, Calif., nonstop movement is a high priority. He and his business partner Jason Kraft renamed their two gyms, which were formally called AKA-Fresno.

During the brief time with Semore as his boxing coach, Koscheck has tightened all aspects of his defense. He’s always had solid takedown defense, now punches and kicks penetrate his guard less frequently.

“Josh has some of the best foot movement in MMA,” Semore said. “Josh is great when he moves. I have to just keep him moving.

“I’m in the process of refining all of his moves. Right now I couldn’t be more pleased with his progress.”

While Koscheck is just in the beginning stages under Semore’s tutelage, the coach has seen enough to feel extremely confident that his fighter will leave the Octagon victorious Saturday night in East Rutherford, N.J.

Semore has seen enough of Johny Hendricks, who will face Koscheck in the UFC on Fox 3 co-main event, to confidently predict his guy will be just fine on fight night.

He’s so confident Koscheck will beat Hendricks that Semore isn’t shy about talking St. Pierre.

“Hendricks’ punches are sloppy and unorthodox, and I’m not saying that just because of my friendship with Josh,” Semore said. “Johny has a lot of weaknesses; he’ll have difficulty with Josh.

“And if I’d been with Josh, I don’t think St. Pierre would have beaten him. I guarantee that when Josh fights him again that jab will be neutralized.

“Trust me, it will be neutralized. He will never out-strike Josh again. I see all of St. Pierre’s weaknesses.”

As soon as the judges’ scorecards were read, Ricardo Almeida knew it was time to end his fighting career.

Almeida still believed he could compete against UFC’s top welterweights. What he could no longer do was defeat some of the sport’s questionable judging.

Fighting in his home state of New Jersey on March 19, 2011, at UFC 128, Almeida came out on the short end of a unanimous decision to Mike Pyle.

“As a fighter, I’ve been on the wrong end of a couple of bad decisions, fights I thought I’d won but lost,” Almeida, who spent most of his mixed martial arts career at middleweight, told ESPN.com. “The one closest to my heart is the last fight in Jersey.

“It was close, but I thought I won that fight.”

Rather than be victimized by another "bad" decision, Almeida decided to take off his gloves for good. He might have lost to Pyle, but he wasn’t done fighting. Almeida was just getting started.

You know the saying, "if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em"? Well, Almeida took that saying to heart and, shortly after his loss to Pyle, became an MMA judge with the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board.

The experience has been satisfying and eye-opening for Almeida, who has a newfound appreciation for some of the obstacles judges must overcome while scoring fights.

“Personally, it’s just giving back to a sport that has given a lot to my life,” Almeida said. “[NJSACB attorney] Nick Lembo invited me and I’ve had a great relationship with the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board and I accepted right away.

“What people don’t understand is that the view a judge has watching the fight isn’t the same view fans have watching on TV. It’s hard; it’s a different perspective.”

A judge’s vision can sometimes be obstructed by poles, referees and poor seating angles, which strengthens Almeida’s belief that former fighters are best equipped to score today’s action.

“There is always going to be controversy, but the more we can get guys who understand what’s going on inside the Octagon, the results are going to be a little more consistent,” Almeida said. “Another side of it is that the sport is evolving so quickly that a lot of fans don’t even understand the sport now.”

For a little more than a year, Almeida has been fine-tuning his skills as a professional MMA judge. On Saturday night he gets to show off what he’s learned on the sport’s grandest stage --UFC on Fox at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J.

Almeida will score several bouts on that card, including the co-main event which pits welterweight Johny Hendricks against Josh Koscheck.

His presence as a judge has already garnered support from the fighters.

“He’s going to know a little bit more about the sport,” Hendricks said during a recent conference call. “He’ll know what position really means, and he’ll know when a strike actually lands.”

Koscheck added: “It’s good for the sport. It gets the perspective of a fighter, someone who’s been in the Octagon and knows jiu-jitsu and knows wrestling and understands the sport.

“As this sport grows we’re going to see more ex-UFC fighters become judges. It’s a good start.”

This will be the biggest night of Almeida’s young career as a judge. While he is judging the fighters’ performances, others are sure to judge his.

But with several events under his belt -- among them, Cage Fury Fighting Championships, Ring of Combat and Bellator Fighting Championships -- Judge Almeida is fully prepared for his UFC debut.

“It will be pretty intense, but I will be on my toes with this UFC event, because I know all eyes are going to be on me,” Almeida said.

“Yeah, I’m going to be nervous. It’ll be like I’m walking into a fight myself. But the spotlight only makes me want to be sharper and do a better job.”

In addition to his knowledge of MMA, Almeida also brings his high level of integrity. Some might question if having Almeida judge fights is a conflict of interest. He still runs his gym in Hamilton, N.J., where several high-profile fighters train, including former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar.

No worries; Almeida will never be assigned to judge a bout that has a direct impact on one of his fighters.

“Obviously that is not going to happen,” Lembo told ESPN.com. “There are disclosure forms and conflict of interest forms that every official has to fill out. If anything, Ricardo has voluntarily disclosed some things that I didn’t even think, as the commission attorney, disqualified him.

“That’s one of the reasons why he’s not on that [Nate Diaz-Jim Miller] fight. Diaz has a [Cesar] Gracie connection and Miller’s side [American Martial Arts] also has a connection to Renzo Gracie.”

Miller and Diaz are competing in a lightweight bout that could land the winner a shot at the title. Champion Benson Henderson is tentatively slated to face Edgar in a rematch on Aug. 11 at UFC 150. Almeida and Edgar are closely affiliated with Renzo Gracie.

“I don’t want to be part of a fight where there is any conflict of interest of any kind,” Almeida said. “I’ve trained with Jim Miller and we’re very close with Nate Diaz.”

Knowledge, enthusiasm and integrity: Almeida will bring it all with him as a judge Saturday. Besides, he’s developed into a solid judge, according to his superiors.

“He’s been very good or we wouldn’t use him,” Lembo said. “We’re not using him because he’s Ricardo Almeida; that doesn’t do use any good.

“We’re not in the business of selling tickets or getting media attention; we’re in the business of trying to assure the health and safety of the fighters, and provide the best officiating that we can.”

Longtime followers of MMA no doubt blanch a bit when they hear Josh Koscheck casually refer to himself as “the old man” of the UFC welterweight division.

After all, it doesn’t seem all that long ago that Koscheck and that first bunch of lovable misfits showed up and started punching doors at their McMansion in Las Vegas on the debut season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Considering the miles we’ve all put on in such a relatively short time -- plus, the impending “live” debut of TUF 15 today -- it's almost enough to make the most jaded observer want to pack his stuff and go sleep in the yard, Leben-style.

If you’ll excuse what feels like a particularly pained metaphor, perhaps Koscheck has done just that during the last few months. The consummate 170-pound villain appears to have suffered the MMA equivalent of a mid-life crisis of late, permanently uprooting from the American Kickboxing Academy and striking out on his own as he prepares for his May 5 showdown with Johny Hendricks at UFC on Fox 3.

In doing so, Koscheck has officially reached the awkward third act of his athletic career. He’s the captain of his own ship now, no longer just a fighter, but a gym owner and the architect of his own future. Having already lost twice to Georges St. Pierre he’s admitted he’s more interested in big paydays than the divisional rat race, even offering to go up to middleweight to get them. It’s odd that matchmakers have responded to that shift by setting him up with back-to-back fights against up-and-comers like Mike Pierce and Hendricks, but that’s probably a topic best left for another day.

Koscheck is far from done -- the five fights left on his relatively new UFC deal attest to that -- but whatever moves the 34-year-old has left on the board, now’s definitely the time to make them.

By leaving AKA, a team that has always taken pains to cast itself as one of the sport’s tightest-knit, in favor of his own Dethrone Base Camp squad (and burning bridges with coach Javier Mendez on the way out) Koscheck has put the bulls eye squarely on himself for the remainder of his career.

He knows his time is running short and he knows his best chance to reaffirm his status as a player at welterweight is while St. Pierre is out with a knee injury. To his credit, he also seems to understand what's at stake for him by choosing to try it on his own terms.

“I definitely have a lot to prove because everybody is looking at me like, ‘OK, he left, now what's he going to do? Is he going to be successful or is he going to fail?’” Koscheck told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani recently. “I can guarantee that in my life, when I put my mind to something, I can usually get it accomplished.”

By blaming Mendez’s coaching for the fact that AKA has produced a litany of top contenders but only a few champions, Koscheck will take the full brunt of whatever happens next for him. If he beats Hendricks and goes on to reenergize his career, he makes it look like he had a point. If he loses, if things don’t go better for him at the Base Camp, then his words inevitably start to look like the sour grapes of a guy trying to explain to himself and everyone else why he came so close, but never captured UFC gold.

Some athletes thrive under that kind of scrutiny and maybe Koscheck is one of them. Running your own camp typically isn’t a recipe for success for fighters, but in fairness, we've never seen an in-his-prime Koscheck coached by anyone other than the guys at AKA. Maybe the change will indeed do him good. Maybe he’ll turn back the tide of new 170-pound contenders and pave his own road back to the top.

Maybe not.

Either way, it’s all on him now, and that’s probably the way the “old man” has wanted it all along.

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.

From 2008 until August of 2010, Thiago Alves’ strongest asset wasn’t his tremendous striking skills. It was the poker face he wore before each fight.

On the surface, Alves had the look of a man assured of winning. It did not matter who the opposition happened to be -- Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre or Jon Fitch -- Alves always gave the impression he would leave the Octagon victorious.

But too often that wasn’t actually what he believed.

On many occasions there was doubt in his mind. Alves wasn’t always 100 percent confident he would be the best man inside the cage on fight night.

The lack of confidence had nothing to do with believing in his skill-set -- he's always believed in his physically abilities; it’s what gave him the strength to step in the cage against top 170-pound competitors. The source of Alves’ doubts would creep in during training camp. He wasn’t comfortable with the folks calling the shots -- his coaches.

In the past, Alves and his handlers weren’t on the same page during training camp and it reduced his confidence and performance on fight night.

After an impressive 2008 campaign in which he registered wins over Hughes and Koscheck, Alves suffered unanimous decision losses to St. Pierre and Fitch.

“For you to step in there and give your best, you have to know that the entire team gave its best, that everything was done right,” Alves told ESPN.com on Tuesday. “If you have any doubts in your mind it’s going to show in the fight.

“It was just a matter of getting the right people behind me, and getting my confidence back. I’m still at American Top Team, but like in every camp there are coaches who come and go. Right before my fight with Koscheck, we [the coaches and I] had a falling out. That dragged on until after the [St. Pierre] camp.

“After that fight [against St. Pierre], I found new people. It took me a few fights to get adjusted to the new coaching staff.”

Alves (19-8) has won two of his three most recent fights and his confidence level is at a career high. He will carry that confidence into his welterweight showdown Friday night against Martin Kampmann. The two meet in the main event at UFC on FX 2 in Sydney.

Kampmann (18-2) is as tough as they come, and is looking to maintain the momentum he regained with a unanimous decision over Rick Story in November. That win allowed Kampmann to halt his losing skid at two.

But Kampmann could be facing his stiffest test as a professional in Alves. The Coconut Creek, Fla.-based Alves appears to be in the best shape of his career, both physically and mentally.

Alves, who has struggled in the past to make the 170-pound limit, gives a large chunk of credit for his turnaround to nutritionist Mike Dolce.

“I brought in Mike Dolce after the Fitch fight and that took me to another level in my career,” Alves said. “My old strength and conditioning coach used to pretty much abuse me when it came to the weight cut. It was painful. It would make me think about quitting my job.

“Since I started working with Mike Dolce, I’ve enjoyed the whole process. Three days before the weigh-in and I’m just 11 pounds over the limit. This has never happened before in my career. And I feel great. I’m ready to fight right now.

“When I know I have the right people behind me and I know I did the right training I know I can go out there and perform at my best. That’s what happened in my last fight [a first-round submission victory over Papy Abedi in November] and that’s exactly what’s going to happen Friday night.”

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.

Josh Koscheck invites you to hate him. Why? Because he was one of the earliest subscribers to the “as long as you care” camp. If you can’t stand him, that’s like saying you won’t miss the chance to see him get his head smashed in. That’s like saying you love him.

But something about Koscheck’s heel mode has never seemed right. When he was calling Chris Leben a “fatherless bastard” on the first season of the “Ultimate Fighter,” he just came off like your ordinary punk. By the time he was coaching opposite Georges St. Pierre on the show 11 seasons later, his demeanor had only been tweaked by success -- it was cockiness with actual backing. This version, the entrepreneurial one, had a Ferrari in his garage in Fresno; the first version had just a few trophies from his collegiate wrestling days at Edinboro University.

Does any of this make for a heel? Definitely annoying, maybe shallow. If we’re talking heels heels, Koscheck is certainly well heeled and open about it. Koscheck has always been hard to know aside from his materialistic desires. Even his close friends, the ones who know the “real” Koscheck, are generally business people where real is often interdistinguishable from the alternative.

But think about that, anyway -- if only specific VIPs know the other side of Koscheck, and it’s a circle that’s so tight and protected from commoners as to become elitist, doesn’t that amount to the same thing?

It’s a strange place to have to go in search of a genuine center. But that’s Koscheck -- or as much of him as we can glean.

Yet heel or not, he’s once again making his way back up the welterweight rungs as a sort of man without a country. He lost his title bid to Georges St. Pierre in December 2010, effectively turning him into the Rich Franklin of the welterweight division. As he recovered from broken orbital bones suffered in the St. Pierre bout, his options were limited to this: migrate or guard the gate. By the time Koscheck resurfaced to fight Matt Hughes nine months later, he was talking about exclusive “big fights” or a possible run in the middleweight division. This was Franklin all over again (only, you know, he was threatening to sue Stephan Bonnar).

Then things changed.

With St. Pierre’s knee injury, the introduction of an interim belt, and a victory over Mike Pierce at UFC 143, Koscheck appears to be neither gatekeeper nor division-hopper. Instead he appears again as a contender. And just like that he will fight Johny Hendricks in May in a bout with significant ties to another title shot.

In this way, Dan Hardy might have touched on more than he knew when he said that Koscheck was an “unflushable.” Think the idea of Koscheck/St. Pierre III isn’t exciting? Kos couldn't care less of what you think. He even went so far as to say he hoped St. Pierre would never fully recover from knee surgery. If you can’t beat them, hope for divine intervention.

But here’s where things get different -- this time, as Koscheck makes his way back, he’ll do it as a lone wolf. He revealed after the Pierce fight that he was no longer training at his long-time hub in San Jose, Calif., the American Kickboxing Academy -- that he was now a full-time member of himself in Fresno. Though this feels like the way it should be, AKA has always been the sweet side of Koscheck’s loyalties. This was what kept him from looking like a bounty hunter with peroxide curls -- training partners Jon Fitch and Mike Swick were his brothers. They were part of his “inner-circle,” part of the Zinkin bond.

Now they are separate. And even though they're no longer gymmates, Koscheck still contends that he’d sooner retire than fight Fitch. A little mystery toward the deeper chords of brotherhood? Maybe. But if you listen to what Koscheck has been saying for the last couple of years -- all this braggadocio stuff about being a “gold-digger, baby” -- you’d have to wonder if loyalties would tend toward Fitch or Benjamin Franklin if presented.

Perhaps then we’ll know if he’s a true heel or a man of very strict guns and principles. Because right now he’s a prolific fighter who we love to hate, yet who’s smart enough to know exactly how reversible that phrase is.

And the strange thing is, at 34 years old and entering his 20th UFC fight since 2005, Koscheck might finally be coming into Koscheck. Here’s a guy who left AKA to go the course alone, who is inviting New Jersey to make like Montreal and give him full-throttle hate, and who, despite it all, is a win away from perhaps forcing a fight on the public that virtually nobody other than he himself wants. Well, you know who he caters to, and it isn’t the public.

Only it sort of is. By daring you to hate him, he’s ensuring that you at least care. And that’s a pretty calculated heel if there’s ever been one.

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.

Though Nick Diaz didn’t leave Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas with Saturday night’s most-coveted honor -- the UFC welterweight interim title -- he did go home with a nice consolation prize.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission revealed on Monday that Diaz earned $200,000 for his five-round unanimous decision loss to Carlos Condit, making UFC 143's highest-paid participant.

Condit made $55,000 for the fight. Besides the bout purse, Condit pocketed an additional $55,000 for his victory, which gave him the welterweight interim belt and a shot at current 170-pound titleholder Georges St. Pierre.

Welterweight contender Josh Koscheck received a check for $146,000. He was paid $73,000 for participating on the card and another $73,000 for his split decision win over Mike Pierce -- who was paid $20,000 for the fight.

Heavyweight Fabricio Werdum, who looked impressive en route to a unanimous decision over rugged Roy Nelson, took home $100,000. A win bonus was not part of Werdum's fight agreement. Nelson was paid $20,000.

Highly ranked bantamweight contender Renan Barao earned $22,000 -- he picked up $11,000 for the fight and an additional $11,000 after defeating Scott Jorgensen by unanimous decision. Jorgensen made $20,500 for his effort.

Rounding out the payment compensation for UFC 143 main card participants were middleweights Ed Herman ($62,000, which included a $31,000 win bonus) and Clifford Starks ($8,000). Herman won the fight by rear-naked choke in the second round.

Additionally, the UFC has officially asked the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the dates of May 26 and July 7. The promotion intends to hold events on those dates at MGM Grand Garden Arena. UFC has not yet revealed any details as to which fighters are slated to participate at those events.

Josh Koscheck has ruled out the possibility of fighting Jon Fitch despite splitting from American Kickboxing Academy, insisting he would rather "quit" the sport than fight a good friend. More »

UFC president Dana White said last week in Chicago that welterweight Josh Koscheck was the promotion’s most hated fighter.

“Let’s be honest here, [Michael] Bisping is probably, other than Koscheck, the most hated guy in the UFC,” White said on Jan. 26. “You’ve got to give the award to Koscheck.

“I’ve never seen one guy clapping, in an entire arena, when Josh Koscheck walks out.”

That’s a bold statement, especially when taking into account that former light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans as middleweight contenders Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping were set to compete two days later at United Center in the UFC on Fox 2 co-feature bout. No one would describe Evans, Sonnen or Bisping as fan favorites.

But regardless where Koscheck ranks on the UFC’s most-hated list, he is unfazed by fan opinion of him. Koscheck is not in the MMA business to make friends or win popularity contests. His priority is to get paid. And when offered a chance to compete Saturday night at UFC 143 in Las Vegas, Koscheck didn’t respond by asking who does the promotion want him to fight.

As long as the check clears, Koscheck is eager to put on the gloves and face anyone.

For the record, Koscheck will fight Mike Pierce on Saturday, and he is confident of adding another win to his professional ledger.

“I didn’t really know who this guy was when I agreed to fight him,” said Koscheck, who will carry a record of 16-5 into the Octagon. “I remember he fought [my teammate] Jon Fitch, but not too well. I think I remember [in] that fight, he didn’t get anything going until the very last minute.

“I know he called me out, so he must think he can win ... but they all think that until I punch them in the face.

“But I get paid the same whether I am fighting Mike Pierce or Carlos Condit, so I don’t care who I fight. I am a gold digger, I fight for money. ... I have a big mouth and I don’t want to lose and I want to look good out there.”

Pierce (13-4) will likely rely on his wrestling skills to prevent Koscheck from looking good Saturday night, but he also intends to surprise the MMA world by upsetting the highly ranked welterweight contender.

Beating Koscheck, who is also a highly skilled wrestler, would be the biggest accomplishment to date in Pierce’s professional career. It would also be his most emotionally satisfying win.

“Josh Koscheck knows who I am,” Pierce said. “He’s pretending he doesn’t because he is Josh Koscheck and that’s what he does: he acts like this all the time. He's a bit of a jerk and that’s his personality and that’s just who he is, and what gets him noticed.

“I hope he is overlooking me because Jon Fitch beat me. That was two years ago and I am a much better fighter now and, for that fight, I had a family issue to take care of which distracted me.

Pierce feels Koscheck's pretending not to know him or to be taking him lightly is purely schtick.

“I hope Josh Koscheck is underestimating me," Pierce said. "But I doubt it.”