http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...;v=I8RjeykTmzE
Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit Camps Differ on Defending Interim Belt While GSP Heals
Looming in the background of UFC 143's main event is the specter of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who is potentially the real prize for Saturday night's winner. Either Nick Diaz or Carlos Condit will emerge with the interim title after the scheduled five-rounder, but a date with St-Pierre and a chance to win the linear title is ultimate reward.
Complicating matters is uncertainty about St-Pierre's return date. UFC president Dana White recently said that GSP may be back in the summertime, while St-Pierre himself suggested that November was a more likely time frame.
That leads to questions about how the division will move forward in his absence. And on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour, Diaz's manager and trainer Cesar Gracie revealed that if Diaz wins, he'll urge his charge not to compete until St-Pierre is ready to face him.
"If we're fortunate and we win this fight, I would advise Nick to not take another fight before the GSP fight unless it was in different weight class," he said. "We want to wait for that 170-pound thing. The people I speak with, they want to see the GSP fight if Nick is able to defeat Condit. That's where I'm at with it. I'd advise Nick to not take another fight."
Depending on St-Pierre's recovery time, that could lead to a 10-month break between fights, a period that Gracie said could be broken up by a temporary move to middleweight.
Historically though, UFC has rarely allowed champions to move divisions to compete in non-title matches. The last to do it was middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva, who moved up to light-heavyweight to KO Forrest Griffin in August 2009.
Gracie's comment got under the skin of Condit's manager Malki Kawa, who wondered if the Diaz camp was looking past UFC 143 and into the future.
"At the end of the day, if people are writing Carlos Condit off, it's a big mistake," he said. "Carlos is coming to fight. The guy is in great shape. Remember, he was supposed to fight in October. He hasn't stopped training. He's coming to fight and this is going to be a real good fight. And if and when he wins this belt, if [the UFC] wants to put him back out to fight again, Carlos is going to fight again and defend his belt against anyone who challenges him. We're not going to sit around and wait for anyone, not Georges or anybody. If there's fights out there, Carlos wants them."
But Gracie said his comment was meant with no disrespect, and that he was simply offering his opinion on a hypothetical situation.
Gracie said that refusing another welterweight bout was simply a means of preserving a fight that has come to be anticipated by both fans and fighters since Diaz was originally matched up with GSP last year. As he noted, the fight itself is more important to Diaz than the actual hardware for beating him. And in his opinion, given St-Pierre's level of dominance, a fight against Diaz would be important for the sport.
"There hasn't been any hype in a GSP fight for a very long time to the point he cleaned out his division and they were talking about an Anderson Silva matchup just to get some kind of excitement," he said. "Nick really brings that to table because he's one of most gifted athletes in terms of technically sound fighters out there. And you saw GSP on primetime. [Nick] brings out the thing where GSP wants to fight. I think it would be an amazing fight. And so that's the fight I would want."
Gracie credited Condit's completeness as a fighter, saying he has an underrated ground game, dangerous striking and excellent stamina. But he also made it clear this fight has no personal significance for Diaz past the fact that Condit is going to be standing across from him on Saturday.
"Carlos is an enemy now," he said. "He's in the way and he must be taken care of."
Condit's manager disagreed with Gracie speaking about what Diaz might do after winning, but the two found common ground on the competitiveness of the fight itself.
"They're talking like they already won the fight," Kawa said. "I do that as well sometimes, but when I see someone do it to me, I have to turn around and say, 'Hey, don't write my guy off.' No one should. This is a better fight overall [than a GSP-Diaz fight]. No disrespect to Georges but we all know that these two guys will come to scrap."
With a rehabilitation time of between six and 10 months, St-Pierre has plenty of time to digest that. At least he has some idea of what might be coming his way. If Diaz wins, he'll be there waiting when GSP is ready, but Condit will defend the interim belt with no regard for St-Pierre's return date.
Nice michael kuiper is te zien op facebook!
Volgens MMA junkie:
UFC officials recently announced that UFC 143's preliminary bouts of Dan Stittgen vs. Stephen Thompson and Rafael Natal vs. Michael Kuiper will stream via Facebook.
The Facebook stream now complements the evening's pay-per-view and FX broadcasts.
Featuring an interim welterweight title fight between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit UFC 143 takes place Feb. 4 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Dutchman Kuiper (11-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) makes his debut with an unblemished resume and three consecutive first-round wins by TKO or KO on the international circuit. However, a look at his resume shows that he has yet to meet an opponent with significant high-level experience.
Kan iemand een schatting geven van hoelaat dat gevecht ongeveer zal zijn?
After 62 Straight Kickboxing and MMA Wins, Stephen Thompson Makes UFC Debut
The numbers are something out of a video game or a movie or someone's imagination. In amateur kickboxing, Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson was 37-0. As a pro kickboxer, 20-0. As a professional mixed martial artist, he's 5-0 so far. That's 62 straight fights without a loss.
But it's no facade, and his record is no product of fishy matchmaking. In fact, despite his newness on the MMA scene, he's already wowed some of this sports' brightest minds. Georges St-Pierre's trainer Firas Zahabi recently called Thompson "definitely the best karate guy, the best striker I've ever seen, all around in any sport."
The welterweight brings his exceptional record to this weekend's UFC 143, where he faces fellow octagon rookie Daniel Stittgen, hoping to stretch his streak to triple digits.
The remarkable run is the result of a lifetime spent in the martial arts. Ask him about the last time he lost a fight in competition and he has to scan his memory, traveling more than a decade back into the 1990s, when he was a 12-year-old on the karate tournament circuit.
"Honestly, I did hundreds and hundreds of them, and I probably lost every one of them," he said. "I maybe won one time. I would get my butt tore up. I remember that like it was yesterday. So I learned as a young kid to keep my chin up and keep training hard. I know what losing feels like and I don't want to do it again. That's what pushes me now."
His experiences as youth didn't just supply the drive for his current success, they also provided his "Wonderboy" moniker. Given his resume, you might guess that it stems from his remarkable success as a fighter, but you would be wrong. Instead, he got pegged with the name back in elementary school, when he was known for singing and dancing, and got tagged by his sister's boyfriend as "Stevie Wonder," later altered to "Wonderboy."
Regardless of the origins, the label proved prophetic. As Thompson's record suggests, he's been a phenom on the combat sports scene for years.
Now 28 years old, Thompson aims to prove he is much more than a standup artist. He has a black belt in Japanese jiu-jitsu, trains Brazilian jiu-jitsu under his brother-in-law, eighth-degree black belt Carlos Machado, and says his wrestling is his second strongest skill behind his striking.
"I've had many fights, but this is the biggest stage I've ever fought in," he said. "The UFC is the best. They're it. I'm glad to have the privilege to come in and fight there. Nerves will play a big part, but if you're not nervous going into a fight, you shouldn't be out there."
Thompson started in the martial arts at three years old, training under his father, Ray, who owns a karate studio in Simpsonville, South Carolina. But it wasn't always a love affair. By around the age of 10 or 11, the flame had burned out. While his friends were playing baseball and football, Thompson found himself constantly stuck at the dojo.
He trained there. He ate there. He did his homework there.
"As I got to that age, doing it all the time was like work," he said. "It wasn't fun anymore. But one day, the light bulb clicked in my head, and I got it."
Thompson was around 12 at that time, working out in adult classes. By the time he was 15, he was making his amateur debut, inspired in part by his older sister Lindsay, who he often watched compete and aimed to emulate.
He did her proud, defeating an unbeaten 26-year-old en route to 37 straight victories. His biggest personal highlight came in 2005, when he captured a World Association of Kickboxing Organizations championship at a tournament held in Szeged, Hungary, becoming the first American to win a gold in the tournament since 1983.
But even as Thompson succeeded -- he won all 57 of his pro fights, and 46 by KO -- he was hit by the nagging feeling that kickboxing wasn't really going anywhere. Coupled with his own personal aspirations, he knew a move to MMA was in his future.
"My goal was always to be the best fighter, and in order to do that, I was going to have to switch to MMA and use these skills that I've been working on ever since I was younger but never got to use in competition," he said.
Thompson's move was delayed by a devastating knee injury in 2007 that saw him tear the ACL, MCL and PCL in his left knee. Later on, he suffered another setback, hurting the same knee after trying to do too much, too soon.
Upon returning, Thompson began training with some of the world's best MMA minds, including St-Pierre. Years prior, GSP had been in the corner of a Thompson opponent, only to watch "Wonderboy" KO his friend. The camps stayed in contact and GSP has since called on Thompson several times to assist in his camp.
"It does give you a lot of confidence going into fights," he said. "When you're up there and going toe-to-toe with the world's best -- and I know I still have a long way to get to where he is when it comes to wrestling and jiu-jitsu -- but it definitely gives me a mental advantage going into fights."
In his octagon debut, he faces Stittgen (7-1), another UFC newcomer who has earned five of his wins by submission. Thompson said that he expects all of his opponents to want no part of his standup and look to take the fight to the mat at the first available opportunity. But he trusts his wrestling to keep him upright, saying that it's always been a point of emphasis in training as a way to keep himself in an advantageous position.
And more than that, he trust his fight instincts. Thompson's record doesn't just suggest he is a winner, it proves it beyond any doubt. The streak may be in jeopardy every time he fights, but like most winners, "Wonderboy" doesn't spend much time thinking about what he has already done. Every fight is a new experience, providing a new lesson.
"People always ask me what will happen if I lose, and I never really thought about it until they asked me," he said. "If I do lose, it will just give me a stronger drive to train harder. I know guys are out here to rip my head off and trip me up. But coming from my background almost gives me an advantage because I know guys are going to want to take me down. Everyone out there can look for an exciting fight, and it's going to be another knockout."
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._JPG_large.jpg
Official fight card
Main card
Interim Welterweight Championship bout: Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit
Heavyweight bout: Roy Nelson vs. Fabricio Werdum
Welterweight bout: Josh Koscheck vs. Mike Pierce
Bantamweight bout: Renan Barão vs. Scott Jorgensen
Middleweight bout: Ed Herman vs. Clifford Starks
Preliminary card (FX)
Featherweight bout: Dustin Poirier vs. Max Holloway
Welterweight bout: Matthew Riddle vs. Henry Martinez
Bantamweight bout: Alex Caceres vs. Edwin Figueroa
Welterweight bout: Matt Brown vs. Chris Cope
Preliminary card (Facebook)
Welterweight bout: Dan Stittgen vs. Stephen Thompson
Middleweight bout: Rafael Natal vs. Michael Kuiper
Mike Pierce Aims to Break Josh Koscheck 'Mentally and Physically' at UFC 143
With a simple phone call, Mike Pierce may have changed the course of his career. When UFC 143 found itself with a hole near the top of the card, Pierce made a call, asking for a fight with former welterweight division No. 1 contender Josh Koscheck. And to the surprise of many, he got it.
One of those surprised? Koscheck, who has been uncharacteristically silent in the lead-up to the fight, but recently said he's not impressed with Pierce's skills, and that he plans to make an example out of Pierce for calling him out.
That may sound like typical pre-fight bluster, but Pierce -- who was once a fan of Koscheck's -- said he believes it's cockiness typical of the real Koscheck.
"I hear things from people that used to train with him or used to be involved with him one way or another and they're like, 'That's really him,'" Pierce said on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "That's not the kind of guy I really like, to be honest. I do like that he is a wrestler. I do respect that. But the attitude and arrogance that come with it, I'm not really keen on that."
Koscheck goes into the fight as a sizable favorite but Pierce has shown the skills to be competitive win anyone. In his most high-profile fights, he took a round from Jon Fitch when Fitch was ranked No. 2 in the world before losing a close decision, and he later lost a split-decision to the surging Johny Hendricks.
Given those experiences, suffice it to say that the prospect of facing Koscheck doesn't scare him. In fact, he says standing up to Koscheck's aggression is one of the most important ways of seizing the momentum of the fight.
"I think you just press the pace on him and wear him down," he said of his keys to victory. "I tend to think he's kind of got that bully style where if he goes in there and starts beating someone up, he gets that momentum going, and it's kind of hard to stop him. But if you come at him from the opening bell and put the pressure on him, and get inside his head and show him that he's not in the fight, he's just going to give up and break down."
Pierce's wrestling credentials make him believe that he can negate Koscheck's advantage. He, too, was a Division I wrestler while at Portland State University, experience that influences his hard-charging style.
That's exactly what he hopes to bring to Koscheck as the 31-year-old looks for the signature victory of his career, a win that would vault him up the rankings list and announce him as a contender.
"I want to just press the action on Josh and watch him break down," he said. "Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching a guy mentally and physically give up and then having the referee pull me off of him. That's what I want."
makkie voor Diaz.
Ik vind ie vader van hem alleen zo irittant. Nadat een partij afgelopen is komt ie altijd zo dom doen in de octagon. Alsof hij 12 is.
makkie voor Diaz?
Misschien moeten jullie eens kijken naar Condit's record. Condit is gewoon echt heel goed, laatste jaren alleen verloren tegen Kampman die ik ook zwaar underrated vind.
Ik denk dat Condit voor niemand een makkie is.
condit wint dit, let erop
Gameness: The Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit Story
UFC 143's main event between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz isn't special just because it sets up an interim UFC welterweight champion. This is a rare fight that where both competitors marry technical acumen and amazing gameness in a bout of significance.
What is gameness?
Author Sam Sheridan once defined it as pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. The term actually has roots in dog fighting. It's used to describe the eagerness of a dog to continue fighting through a grueling and injurious battle. The dog fighting atmospherics make the term somewhat unsavory to borrow for MMA purposes, but we're treading in metaphors, not literalism. As UFC 143's Carlos Condit himself states about his impending bout with Nick Diaz, "it's going to be a dog fight'.
There are a number of ways to parse the merits fight or evaluate its worthiness, but it'd be criminal to not note just how much gameness defines this bout's character. Every fighter has biological limits, but Diaz and Condit are two fighters who are nearly peerless when it comes to competing up to the outer limit of those boundaries.
Numerous examples of their durability abound. Against Rory MacDonald, Condit was able to withstand a torrential downpour of ground and pound only to stop the rising prospect in the third round. Against Paul Daley, Diaz was floored on more than one occasion in a chaotic see-saw battle only to stop the Brit with strikes late in the first. Condit was floored with gargantuan punches early by Jake Ellenberger, but hung on and eventually took a decision. Diaz was getting drilled by hard punches from Takanori Gomi before driving the Japanese sensation back with strikes, ultimately submitting him with a spectacular gogo plata. The list of their gameness accolades is nearly endless.
That is precisely what makes gameness so pleasing: it's never weathered nor reduced. With limited and qualified exception, the damage Condit and Diaz have absorbed in the course of their fights never dampened their willingness or ability to strike back. When the tides turned, they flooded.
Gameness, though, shouldn't be crudely misinterpreted as solely the ability to take a shot. That's part of it, of course. But what it truly underscores is both ferocity and the enthusiastic participation for the scrap. Gameness, in other words, has both defensive and offensive components.
What unites Condit and Diaz - and what has made them fan favorites - is their willingness to engage risk as a means of winning a fight. As long as you're winning, being risk averse isn't generally the worst approach to fighting. However, it isn't particularly crowd pleasing and more importantly, it's an approach that flies in the face of what we understand as athletic bravery. What makes Diaz and Condit fairly unique is they've used this approach of accepting risk to reach some of the sport's loftiest positions. It's one thing for amateurs to brazenly throw caution to the wind to rile up the crowd in some sort of Pyrrhic victory. It's quite another for two of the sport's most successful welterweights to have reached these heights using a similar albeit more measured approach.
It's also historically accurate and demonstrably true wrestling has been used as a crutch for some fighters to coast through fatigue or rough patches during fights. The exhausted and less willed among the professional ranks have relied on it to hang on in precarious moments. Coincidentally or not, neither Diaz nor Condit is particularly proficient as a wrestler. Why is that important? No matter what direction the fight takes neither fighter will likely have the skills (and I suspect no inclination) to rely on wrestling as a means to slow down or stunt the action. This one won't be decided by one fighter more expertly exercising control to avoid risk.
I don't want to suggest gameness is the only reason this fight is special. There's obviously more to the story. But the level of gameness both fighters exhibit is extraordinary because they also possess deep experience and technical acumen. Neither fighter is careless, but neither fighter lets caution lord over them. That's unique. Over time as fighters gain experience and add skills, you'll often see a trade off in ferocity. With Diaz and Condit, however, you just see the ferocity more expertly channeled.
My early hunch is Nick Diaz will be able to outlast Carlos Condit en route to a decision victory. If that happens, he'll eventually face UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre. But en route to that end, I'd bet my mortgage he's going to catch a noteworthy beating at the hands of Condit.
I hope I'm not jinxing the bout, but given the records and deserved reputations of both fighters, it's hard to see how either gets out of this one early. Or easily. They're game for the scrap, from bell to bell, no matter the cost of doing business in between. At this level of the game - and in a five-round, interim title bout - that's a reality that deserves a little extra recognition.
Goede judoka, maar ja hij gaat wel vechten tegen een zwarte band bjj. Het staande werk is meer staan en rammen, afgaande op meerdere filmpjes.
Voor de rest: sportieve jongen......................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKiIb...eature=related
scheids moet er eerder tussenspringen! micheal is gewoon een killer.
Nick Diaz Discusses the Real Him, Says He Respects Carlos Condit's Style
There may be no more polarizing figure in mixed martial arts than UFC welterweight contender Nick Diaz. Some fans adore him. Others can't stand him. And there are some who simply scratch their heads and throw their hands up, completely baffled by the things he says and does.
Journalists have agonized over keyboards trying to explain his personality and motivations, to almost no avail. Diaz is a riddle. But to hear him tell it, it shouldn't be quite so difficult to understand him.
"You see me. What you see is what you get," he said during Wednesday's open workouts in Las Vegas. "You get real martial arts, you get real fighting, you get a real warrior mentality. Some people aren’t mature enough to handle it. This isn't soccer. i have no problem being sportsmanlike about this whole thing. I understand it’s a sporting event. But to me this is a fight. I’m not going to let things change that to help this sport become what it is. I think this sport is what it is. I don't worry about looking good. I do what I've got to do to survive, to keep my teeth in my head, and my head on my shoulders. I apologize to whoever can’t put that together and understand that."
That remarkably lucid description at least defines Nick Diaz, the fighter, which is perhaps all we can truly hope for.
Diaz (26-7, 1 no contest), who faces Carlos Condit in an interim welterweight title fight at Saturday's UFC 143, was his usual self during the media scrum, sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes mystifying, and often, both.
He spent time talking about his interest in triathlons, his disinterest in pandering to cameras, and of course, the fight.
He voiced no disappointment that he wasn't facing welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who is currently on the mend after knee surgery, saying that his upcoming bout with Condit "just feels like the next fight," and nothing more.
But he also praised Condit's fighting style. While he has criticized St-Pierre for trying to win on points rather than going for the finish, he offered up no such issues with Condit, an aggressive, well-rounded opponent who has won 12 of his last 13 fights, including 11 finishes.
That type of style is remarkably similar to Diaz's, so it's no surprise he likes what he sees.
"I think the way I fight and the way my opponent fights, we're both two guys that are ranked top level, top 10 and we’re both looking to get ahead on damage more so than worried about going on top or bottom," he said. "We just want to win the fight and it’s pretty much more a realistic fighting style. And that’s what I’m about, is about being realistic."
The winner takes the interim title and could set up a match with the returning St-Pierre later this year. St-Pierre has gone on the record saying he hopes that Diaz wins because he hopes to fight him down the line. The popular champion cited Diaz's "disrespect" towards him as motivation, calling him unprofessional and arrogant.
But Diaz says he's just being who he is, not who anyone else wants him to be.
"People try to say, 'Nick Diaz, he’s crazy or not crazy or fake crazy,'" he said. "I’m like, 'Hey, bro, what you see is what you get.' I’m not out here trying putting on an act like I'm crazy. In my opinion, everyone else is crazy. They’re the ones who put on an act for you, doing what they're told in front of the camera. The camera gives them a line and they say it 10 times over again, and then whoever goes back and they can [edit] it out. They turn these guys into robots. I’m just not going to be that guy. Don't tell me I'm crazy. I'm out here acting natural. I'm the only one here being realistic out here about this sort of thing."
Carlos Condit Happy to Spoil Everyone's GSP vs. Diaz Party
Watch below as Carlos Condit discusses his upcoming fight against Nick Diaz, his thoughts on the Primetime experience, his thoughts on Georges St-Pierre rooting for Diaz to win, the way he expects the fight to play out and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=A9Y69ASEP0Q
Fabricio Werdum Explains Why First UFC Run Ended Prematurely
Watch below as Fabricio Werdum talks about his upcoming fight at UFC 143 against Roy Nelson, what it's like being back in the UFC, why his first run in the UFC ended badly, his improved striking, and why his first UFC run ended prematurely
http://assets.mmafighting.vid.io/855...36b30b347d.mp4
Josh Koscheck Hopes Georges St-Pierre Never Returns
Watch below as Josh Kosheck talks about his UFC 143 fight against Mike Pierce, his initial thoughts when Pierce called him out, his thoughts on Pierce, why he hopes Georges St-Pierre never returns to MMA, and his prediction on Diaz vs. Condit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kS-O2SmoXhs