St-pierre uncomfortable cheering on Diaz
As he settles into his front-row seat on Saturday night, Ultimate Fighting Championship superstar Georges St-pierre will be rooting for a man for whom he has no love and little respect.
“It will be a weird feeling, sitting at the Mandalay Bay wanting Nick Diaz to win,” the welterweight titleholder said in the lead up to UFC 143 in Las Vegas. It was an event at which StPierre was initially scheduled to face Diaz, but a torn anterior cruciate ligament in December sidelined StPierre, resulting in Diaz and Carlos Condit squaring off to determine an interim champion in St-pierre’s absence.
“I was (crushed) when I had to pull out of this weekend’s fight hurt, but I am determined to get back to the octagon as soon as possible to fight this guy. He needs to hold up his part and beat Carlos Condit on Saturday to make this fight happen.”
St-pierre hasn’t fought since UFC 129 in April, an event that drew 55,724 to Rogers Centre in Toronto. He was originally supposed to face former Strikeforce champion Diaz at UFC 137 in October but Diaz was replaced by Condit after noshowing a pair of media events. St-pierre sprained his left medial collateral ligament and pulled his right hamstring less than two weeks before UFC 137, however, forcing him to delay that bout.
Then, after Diaz dominated BJ Penn in a revised UFC 137 main event, he called out St-pierre and implied the Montreal native was actually scared, not hurt. A furious St-pierre that night insisted to UFC president Dana White that he wanted Diaz instead of Condit. The UFC president said in all the years he’s known St-pierre that he has never seen him more worked up.
St-pierre says he hasn’t wanted a match this badly since he got down on his knees in the middle of the cage, following a win at UFC 56 in 2005, and pleaded for a title shot versus Matt Hughes.
“I don’t truly hate him as a person. I don’t know that he is a bad guy, but I hate what he brings to the sport with the disrespect and the unprofessional things he says and does,” St-pierre said of the combustible Diaz.
“It is sort of a professional hatred. He has been nothing but disrespectful and arrogant towards me.”
St-pierre was in Las Vegas as an interested observer during UFC 137 fight week. He said each time an elevator opened in the hotel those few days, he wondered if Diaz would step inside and start something. StPierre felt he had to keep his fists cocked “because every time I came across him he wanted to fight there and then.”
“He will bring out the best in me, I will be 100 per cent focused, like a bomb-expert defusing a time bomb,” he said.
“When my back is against the wall and I have no choice but to win, when I cannot lose to this person under any cost, that is when I am most dangerous.”
Of course, the possibility remains that St-pierre won’t even face Diaz when he returns to action. Condit, who shares several of the same training partners and coaches at StPierre, is going to have something to say on the subject. St-pierre calls Condit “a great person” and “a true mixed martial artist,” and admits he feels bad about wanting him to lose on Saturday.
“But I have never wanted to fight anyone as much as I want to fight Diaz,” added St-pierre.
“Nick Diaz’s boxing is very strong. He could be the best boxer in the UFC. I don’t want to be seen to be advising any other fighter how to win a fight, but if Diaz does what he does best then he should win this fight on Saturday.”
St-pierre says his rehab is ahead of schedule, to the point he can train “and even kick,” but he insists he won’t rush back and risk reinjuring himself, no matter how frustrating it is. Hurrying back from his original leg injuries led to the more serious ACL tear. He won’t make the same mistake again.
“I will watch on Saturday and go home very motivated to rehab on Monday morning but I must be disciplined and I must continue to rehab at the pace I am doing,” he said.