ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

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.

Greg Jackson has hinted that he may coach Jon Jones against Rashad Evans in their UFC light heavyweight title fight at UFC 145 in April after all. More »

Jon Jones' long-awaited UFC light heavyweight title defense against Rashad Evans is booked, and it couldn't have been better positioned on the calendar.

Thanks to a judicious call by Zuffa to postpone a pay-per-view card in Montreal slated for the end of March, Jones-Evans bookends what's likely to be the widest gap between UFC pay-per-view events in 2012.

When the rivals step into the Octagon in Atlanta, it will have been almost two full months since Frankie Edgar and Benson Henderson battled it out for the UFC lightweight belt in Japan. Eons in this world. The result: ample space for fans to recover from pay-per-view fatigue and for the Jones-Evans story lines, of which there are many, to flesh out.

That sort of vacuum is rare these days, and, I must say, welcome.

As the UFC pumps out fights and content at capacity, there’s hardly a moment to pause and get excited for the next one, or dwell on what just happened. While there are some intriguing bouts scheduled between Feb. 25 and April 21, including three Zuffa events and the start of the new Bellator campaign, none come close to matching the gravitational pull that Jones-Evans delivers.

Beyond the benefit to customers (and, not that you care, the media too), the mid-spring date works well for Jones and Evans.

After defeating Lyoto Machida in December, Jones said he'd like four to five months off. So it shall be. That's good news for a young champion, whose 2011 featured four fights against dangerous competitors in highly pressurized spots. After the new year, Jones changed his tune some, suggesting he'd like to compete as soon as possible. But it was in his best interest to sit out, and so a date in late April with Evans is just right.

Able to recover from a hard training camp and five-round fight against Phil Davis at the end of January, Evans has a chance to be at his best, which he must be to have a shot against his former sparring partner at Greg Jackson's camp in Albuquerque.

Jackson will have to decide soon whether or not he'll work Jones' corner. He's wavered on that point since initially ruling it out when the fight was first made in 2011. Injury prevented the fight then, leading to trash talk and inflamed passions among the camps.

With a solid seven weeks to hone in on, discuss, analyze, debate and project what will happen when these two finally meet in the cage, well, if you’re not interested in the fight it sucks to be you.

For those of us who see Evans as a threat -- perhaps the only threat -- to Jones, there’s a lot to like about how this played out in the end.

Near the end of the ESPN.com live chat of UFC 143 on Saturday, one of our users called Carlos Condit a coward.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. To be more precise, the guy called Condit a COWARD, in all caps.

This, of course, happened immediately after the scores were read in Condit’s slim but unanimous decision win over Nick Diaz, awarding him the UFC’s interim welterweight championship and -- if all goes according to plan -- the opportunity to face Georges St. Pierre in a title unification bout later this year.

To say that emotions were running hot would obviously qualify as a tremendous understatement.

I mention this anonymous user’s comment -- which we can only assume was written in a fleeting moment of blind frustration and complete cerebral shutdown -- not to give it any special consideration, but only to underscore how highly charged the Condit-Diaz decision was for nearly everyone involved.

And everyone not involved.

It’s hard to remember another judges’ verdict in a high-profile bout that spurred as many contradictory opinions and such, uh, furor in the days following.

Clearly, it wasn’t the fight many of us expected. We thought we’d get a pier six brawl; instead, we were treated to a tour de force of game planning and strategy. Condit’s gambit revealed itself subtly and though he played Diaz like a fiddle during the final three rounds, their bout was excruciatingly close and extremely difficult to score. When Diaz took his back during the final 81 seconds, it felt like things might still be up for grabs.

They weren’t. Not according to at least two ringside judges, who gave Condit the nod in all but a single round.

Even to the impartial observer, that seemed a little too lopsided. The problem is, you’d have to look pretty far and wide to find anyone who felt impartial about this fight. Like Diaz himself -- so distraught at the outcome he said he’s “done with this MMA” -- many people probably allowed themselves to get too emotionally close to the situation to judge it accurately.

Such is nearly always the case with Diaz who, if he truly does walk away for good, will be remembered as a fighter who inspired strong feelings on both sides of the aisle.

And indeed, maybe the way you scored Condit-Diaz has a lot to do with how you view both fighters and how you see MMA in general. If you prefer a more old school approach -- or possibly a more primal one -- and think of MMA first and foremost as a simple “fight” that pits one man’s spirit and physical toughness against another’s, then you probably believe Diaz’s aggressive, unyielding style won the day.

If you believe MMA aspires to be something more than a schoolyard scuffle, if you see it as a nuanced professional sport in which tactics and brainpower can and should be just as important as pure brawn, then Condit was probably your guy.

Personally, I scored it 48-47 for Condit, awarding him each of the final three rounds as he built more and more momentum, became more effective at stifling Diaz’s offense and exhibited a kind of “Octagon control” that proved more artful and effective than just senselessly pushing forward. Diaz made it tight with his late takedown and submission attempts, but in my book he didn’t come close enough to finishing them to turn the tide in the last moments.

In the live chat, of course, we update our scorecards following every round. After I scored the first two rounds for the former Strikeforce champion, users accused me of unfairly favoring Diaz. After I scored the final three for the former WEC titlist, users accused me of unfairly favoring Condit.

Neither side said it quite so nicely. That was fine. Then somebody accused Condit of being a coward. That was different. That was ugly.

Ultimately, the vehement and varying reactions to the Condit-Diaz decision speak to something both great and terrible about our sport: Everyone is so passionate about MMA that no one believes anyone else could possibly understand it in the same, personal way they do.

I love the enthusiasm. But I could probably do without the name-calling.

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 »

LAS VEGAS -- Everyone watched the same fight. Not everyone saw it the same.

Carlos Condit’s unanimous decision win over Nick Diaz at UFC 143 is just one of those fights where we’ll have to agree to disagree. Condit believed the judges, who scored it 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47 in his favor, got it right. Diaz didn’t.

Each side received its share of support. When the fight concluded, fans seemed split on the decision. Diaz continually moved forward throughout the fight; however, Condit was successful in making him miss and countering as he back-pedaled.

At the postfight news conference, UFC president Dana White agreed with the decision.

“I scored the first two rounds for Diaz and the last three for Condit,” White said. “This is going to be one of those fights that people are going to score differently. It was a tough one to score.”

Regardless of who fans felt won, one thing is clear -- the result is the result. Condit will receive the next shot at defending champion Georges St. Pierre if he chooses to wait. The Canadian is expected to make a November return from knee surgery.

Even if Diaz chooses not to retire, as he stated after the fight, it appears he’s lost the St. Pierre fight for now.

St. Pierre, who was supposed to fight Diaz at UFC 137 and 143, was sitting cageside alongside White and UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta. According to Fertitta, the 170-pound champion felt the fight was so close it warranted a rematch.

Fertitta responded he couldn’t do that to Condit, who was also scheduled to fight St. Pierre at UFC 137 when Diaz was removed from the main event.

“[St. Pierre] was upset. He wanted to fight Diaz,” Fertitta said. “He said, ‘You have to do a rematch’ and I said, ‘I can’t do that to Carlos.’

“Look, he won the fight. It is what it is. We’ll see what [Condit] wants to do. If I were him, I would wait. St. Pierre will be ready some time in the fall so it’s really not that long. Fighting for the unified title -- it’s worth waiting for.”

The question now is, what chance does Condit have? In many ways, although interest in a fight between Diaz and St. Pierre was high, Condit potentially poses a more problematic matchup.

For starters, he’s incredibly tough mentally. To utilize the style he did against Diaz -- purposefully back up and counter a pressure fighter -- took discipline. He elected to go with a style that could potentially hurt him in the judges’ eyes, but he executed it so well, particularly in the fourth and fifth rounds, that they sided with him.

He’s also exceptional at understanding range. No one in recent memory has been able to stay at the end of Diaz’s jab and avoid damage. Condit understood exactly where he needed to be to pull Diaz in and counter him effectively. If he can do that with Diaz’s jab, he might be able to keep St. Pierre’s double-leg takedown at a distance.

Finally, in his own words, he creates chaos. He’s cautiously wild. At one point, he surprised Diaz enough with a spinning elbow to have him say, "What? We’re throwing spinning s--- now?" He’s the same way on the ground. He’ll use unorthodox strategies to swing the fight in his favor.

Really, that’s why so many wanted to see Diaz and St. Pierre fight. Diaz creates chaos with his aggression and talking to his opponent in the cage. Against a "by the books"-type fighter like St. Pierre, that can be an advantage.

In his own way, Condit creates just as much chaos as Diaz does in a fight. Perhaps even more.

“Georges is a very technical fighter,” Condit said. “He likes to keep things cut and dry. I like to mix it up. I like to throw from weird angles, hit you with punches and elbows -- even if I’m on the ground.

“I’m trying to not only chip away from you physically, but break you mentally. That’s what I do. A lot of guys have had problems with that in the past.”

Cung Le attempted to beat Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139 with an unlikely game plan -- that of fighting like Cung Le.

It nearly worked. Le tried to kick Silva’s liver through his spine, but in the end he was downed with a barrage of strikes that left his nose in crescent form. The scrap was good enough to be a candidate for "fight of the year" but was unfortunate enough to be only the third-most exciting bout of the night. That was the same evening Michael Chandler won a back-and-forth battle with lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in Bellator, and Dan Henderson outlasted Mauricio Rua in a five-round grind.

But the immediate reports back seem to be that Strikeforce fighters like Le are faring pretty well in the UFC. These were supposed to be the B models, slogging it out in a nice regional show. They weren’t supposed to be able to compete with the elite of the world. At least that’s what we heard from carnival barkers whenever somebody had the audacity to compare a Strikeforce fighter with a UFC fighter.

Yet, since the Zuffa purchase of Strikeforce and the great integration, it looks like Strikeforce had its share of equals and betters. This weekend Nick Diaz will fight for the interim welterweight belt against Carlos Condit after belting B.J. Penn at UFC 137. Win it, and he gets his long-awaited shot at Georges St. Pierre. Meanwhile, Fabricio Werdum takes on Roy Nelson in a fight with very loose title connections in the heavyweight division. Should Diaz and Werdum win -- and Vegas thinks they should -- it will continue a trend that makes Scott Coker look vindicated for something deep inside that could use some vindication. It also diversifies things for matchmaker Joe Silva.

Last weekend, Lavar Johnson scored a knockout of the night against Joey Beltran in Johnson's UFC debut. Former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Henderson came back and beat Rua and is now patiently waiting in line for the Jon Jones-Rashad Evans winner. Strikeforce titlist and linear champion Alistair Overeem kicked Brock Lesnar into retirement, and next faces Junior dos Santos for the UFC heavyweight strap. Other Strikeforce fighters (not named Gilbert Melendez) are making their way from the hexagon to the Octagon, too. In fact, just about anybody who’s anybody in the clearance of Strikeforce heavyweights will soon be in the UFC: Antonio Silva, Chad Griggs, Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett, et al.

The floodgates are open.

Granted, some of the Strikeforce fighters coming over are UFC retreads. But in the early returns the worst you can say is that Jake Shields, who jumped ship to the UFC before the acquisition, hasn’t lived up to billing. Most Strikeforce fighters are having a happier time of it than when the UFC/Pride partition came down, and the Pride fighters faltered. Same with the WEC, given the potential of Condit and Ben Henderson. Yet most of the WEC’s talent competed in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions, which didn’t exist in the UFC until the beginning of 2011, so it’s hard to make a full spectrum comparison.

But think about it -- in mid-to-late 2012, as many as three reigning Strikeforce champions could be wearing UFC gold (Diaz, Henderson and Overeem). If Melendez was ever released from exile, he could challenge for the lightweight belt, too.

What does it all mean? Maybe nothing. Or maybe it’s something that we’ve always suspected and debated about. While the best fighters in the world are generally thought to be in the UFC at all times, there are fighters dying for the chance to be brought in for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

And knowing just how short the fight society’s attention span can be, the UFC is only too happy to be wrong when they do.

What a strange time it is to be a UFC executive.

During these last couple of weeks your product aired on network television in front of a peak audience of 6 million viewers, you were besieged by Internet hackers and, this Saturday at UFC 143, the best case scenario for your immediate future involves Nick Diaz becoming interim welterweight champion.

Wild, but true. Somewhere between nearly firing him in September and setting up this weekend’s bout against Carlos Condit, the UFC has clearly decided to double-down on Diaz’s personal brand of unusualness, using some of the lead-up to UFC 143 to lay the groundwork for a possible big money meeting between Diaz and Georges St. Pierre later this year.

Somehow, some way, company brass has come to grips with the fact that, as unpredictable as the former Strikeforce titlist can be, he’s also their best chance to get the welterweight division back on track.

Long the picture of rock-solid consistency, the 170-pound class has been downright uncooperative during the last six months. The fight company’s best laid plans for the welterweight title have been foiled at every turn as of late; first by Diaz’s own obstinacy, then by the bum luck of back-to-back knee injuries to St. Pierre, who had typically been one of its most dependable pay-per-view draws.

The plan to get the ball rolling again begins at UFC 143, so long as both main event fighters can actually make it to the cage without injury or without quietly escaping out the back door of Cesar Gracie’s house. If they do make it that far -- and engage in a fight that results in one man being crowned interim champion -- Diaz will have the chance to do the unthinkable. Not just win the fight, mind you, but transform himself from the division’s biggest outcast into its champion and biggest promotional chip in one fell swoop.

Remember, it was Diaz’s utter lack of dependability that threw the weight class into chaos in the first place. His failure to show up at a pair of prefight news conferences in the fall got him yanked from his original title shot at UFC 137 and forced matchmakers into a juggling act they haven’t quite worked their way out of yet.

As strange as it must feel for the UFC brain trust to throw their promotional muscle behind a guy who so badly failed them just a few months ago, it’s clear that Diaz versus St. Pierre is the fight the paying public wants to see next. If Diaz wins and matchmakers can book it for later in the year, it will not only guarantee the company the kind of substantial payday it sorely needs right now, but it will also give the welterweight division a feeling of momentum it hasn’t had for months.

A Condit victory would be fine -- at least the company would have someone to prop up as champion until St. Pierre returned -- but it wouldn’t spark nearly the same kind of excitement as the lead-up to Diaz-GSP.

Perhaps the oddest part is that Diaz appears to have transformed himself into arguably the 170-pound division's second-biggest draw without even really trying. Unlike middleweight counterpart Chael Sonnen, whose sudden ascension to the upper echelon of his own weight class was obviously carefully scripted, Diaz appears to have forced the UFC's hand simply by being himself. There's just something so compelling about him that, love him or hate him, fans have to watch him. In the fight game, there is perhaps no more valuable commodity than that.

With apologies to Condit, the money, the sizzle and the clear way forward for the welterweight division are all with Diaz here, and right now that makes him the UFC’s best hope.

How weird is that?

Renan Barao heads into a fight at UFC 143 that could earn him a future shot at bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, and Brad Pickett admits the Brazilian could be the man to take the gold. More »

LAS VEGAS -- It’s a simple question with a potentially very complex answer: Is Nick Diaz crazy?

The UFC welterweight must be hearing from select groups of fans that he is -- and one can see how the rumor started. He has skipped news conferences in the past. His own trainer, Cesar Gracie, once informed UFC president Dana White that Diaz snuck out of the window in his house just to escape the situation.

He’s known for giving awkward, at times off-topic interviews. Apparently, despite being pulled from a main event last year after he was deemed too unreliable by UFC brass, he still managed to miss three flights to Las Vegas for this weekend’s fight, according to White.

To Diaz, however, he’s not crazy -- the situation is. He’s here to fight. What’s crazy is before he has to fight, he has to sit at a table and answer questions from media. He has to get in the same room as his opponent and take pictures with him. He has to sit in front of a camera and try to figure out exactly what the UFC wants him to say.

“I’m just being realistic,” Diaz said. “People want to say, ‘Oh, Nick Diaz is crazy.’ I’m like, hey bro, what you see is what you get. I’m not out here trying to put on an act like I’m crazy.

“In my mind, [other fighters] are the ones who are crazy. They’re the ones putting on an act, doing what they’re told in front of the camera. The camera gives them a line and they say it 10 times. They turn these guys into robots. I’m not going to be that guy.”

During the UFC 143 prefight news conference Thursday, a fan in the audience asked Diaz what he meant when he said you need to love mixed martial arts so much, you hate it during a promotional video.

Diaz, seeming disinterested in the question, stared ahead for a few moments before answering, ‘That pretty much says it all, what I said is what I meant.”

It wasn’t exactly a memorable moment; however, the UFC President felt it illustrates why Diaz is viewed the way he is. More so than any fighter in the promotion, Diaz is a guy who doesn’t want to talk about what he does, even with a fan.

“This kid is fascinating,” White said. “You ask him a question he knows the answer to, 'but f--- you. Figure the f---ing answer out yourself. That’s how he thinks. ‘I don’t give a s--- what you think. I’m here to fight. It’s almost like he even hates [the UFC].”

While Diaz believes he’s the most ‘real’ fighter in the UFC, a potential opponent of his tends to disagree. For welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, Diaz isn’t real and he isn’t crazy.

He’s putting on an act, trying to intimidate.

“Nick is not crazy,” St. Pierre said. “Nick is a very smart guy. He hast to intimidate people. He’s like a school bully. I remember people bullying me in school; they tried to make me believe they killed people.

“I don’t buy this thing that he’s crazy.”

White on Overeem: 'I don’t think he’s in that much trouble'

News broke this week that top heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem has been charged with misdemeanor battery, stemming from an incident in a Las Vegas nightclub.

Overeem, who defeated Brock Lesnar at UFC 141 in Las Vegas on Dec. 31, was not arrested during the incident but faces a maximum penalty of six months in country jail for allegedly shoving a woman.

The UFC president said Thursday he does not believe the issue will affect Overeem long-term and does not anticipate it interfering with pairing the Dutch fighter against champion Junior dos Santos as planned.

“He had to use the restroom, this is my knowledge of what happened,” White said. “Security was going to take him but he said, ‘I don’t need security.’ Sure enough, he goes over there and his side of the story is some lady started yelling and swinging at him.

“I don’t think he’s in that much trouble. This isn’t a situation where he beat somebody up.”

Hendo waiting on title shot, unclear if Diaz/Condit winner will

It appears Dan Henderson is content on waiting to face the winner of a light heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans in April rather than fight in the meantime.

“Dan Henderson is in a position now where it looks like he wants to wait for Jon Jones,” White said. “We’ll see what happens with this Rashad fight.”

The 41-year-old fighter made a successful return to the UFC from Strikeforce in November, outlasting Mauricio Rua in a five-round decision, which many felt was the fight of the year.

While that situation has cleared up, it’s currently unknown whether the winner of Saturday’s interim welterweight championship between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit would defend that belt or wait for the return of Georges St. Pierre.

St. Pierre is currently ahead of schedule after undergoing knee surgery and expects a return to the Octagon in November.

“It depends on what happens [Saturday],” White said. “Which guy wins, how he comes out of the fight, how he feels after, does he want to wait -- there are so many different factors, so who knows?”

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.”

Roy Nelson has summed up the importance of Saturday's UFC 143 clash with Fabricio Werdum, claiming he becomes one of the top four heavyweights in the world with a victory. More »

Georges St. Pierre is actively rooting for Nick Diaz to win versus his erstwhile training partner Carlos Condit this weekend at UFC 143.

Why? Because, when he returns from his knee injury, he wants to beat Diaz to a pulp himself and maybe teach him some manners along the way. Simply watching somebody else beat up Diaz isn’t going to cut it -- St. Pierre wants to lay hands on the man who essentially called him a coward. There’s just no satisfaction in doing this thing vicariously.

And as St. Pierre rehabs in California, this becomes his raison d’être -- to drag Diaz from the back alleys of Stockton, and blow him up large and in public under a thousand high-watt bulbs. It just so happens that he’s plotting Diaz’s comeuppance with boom mics hovering over his head.

All of this is, of course, a little bizarre.

Most diplomatic competitors pretend to have no rooting interest in a game/fight that leads directly to them. Any admission of wanting to play/fight a lesser opponent is a sign of disrespect or some overarching insecurity. Any preferential treatment the other way looks like chest puffing.

But as everybody knows, the fight game is always that much more literal and that much more uninhibited. Guys do not follow protocol, they’re not nearly as censored and most have only the vaguest idea of consequences. Maybe it’s because there are no metaphors in play. It is literally man against man, and the loudest man need only back it up.

The novelty is that it’s coming from Georges St. Pierre. That’s GSP, the Hobey Baker of MMA, who once said Dan Hardy would be the toughest challenge of his career (and believed large portions of what he was saying). If there’s ever been a gentler gladiator outside the cage than St. Pierre, I’d like to know who he is.

Yet in the most recent "UFC Primetime," the producers smartly yanked the plug on the Condit/Diaz spotlight to have the usually reserved St. Pierre weigh in on matters. In it, the French-Canadian did not speak in automaton clichés (as he sometimes does) or work rote phrases (such as, “I just want to the best Georges St. Pierre I can be”). This time, over a montage of him doing specialized training on the road back from knee surgery, he said he was hoping and praying that Diaz beats Condit. His dander is still way up, and he looms over Las Vegas this weekend like a storm cloud.

Which is fitting, because St. Pierre also talked about a dark place inside himself that Diaz couldn’t possibly fathom. This was the true revelation. The points were a little loose, but St. Pierre seemed to be saying that Diaz can outcrazy him, but not outblack his moods.

Somehow, in the exchange of Diaz not showing up at news conferences, getting plucked from the title shot and then disrespecting St. Pierre publicly after beating B.J. Penn at UFC 137, lasting impressions were made. In fact, the last insult made St. Pierre’s pupils turn black, and this is a version of St. Pierre that becomes fascinating.

Move over, Garth Marenghi, we’re about to visit Georges St. Pierre’s “Dark Place,” a place the media has never been able to get at. For once, the inner-workings of the usually stubborn professional are burbling up to the surface. And that counts as a new wrinkle.

It also makes the interim welterweight title fight between Condit and Diaz that much more fun, and it definitely makes GSP’s rooting interest the general rooting interest. Who doesn’t want to see Diaz-St. Pierre now? Who doesn’t want to see St. Pierre fighting with a grudge, against a guy who doesn’t give a damn about no feelings?

Now, with the UFC on Fox 2 playing out as the gateway to vastly riveting matchups between Chael Sonnen/Anderson Silva and Rashad Evans/Jon Jones, there’s this weekend, which joins right in. A supercharged, totally peeved St. Pierre is expediting his return because he wants to smash Diaz into a million afterthoughts as soon as possible. It’s another gateway fight that sets up a trilogy of ax-grinding title bouts for mid-2012.

And it’s a hard spot for Condit. Lose, and make everybody happy. Win, and snap St. Pierre back into the ordinary light.