UFC 137 GSP vs. Diaz: It's Time to Unify the Welterweight Titles

The news came down on Wednesday evening that UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre’s next title defense will come against Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz.

St-Pierre and Diaz have dominated their respective divisions, combining to win 19 straight fights; but with the organizations now merged under the Zuffa umbrella, it now makes sense to quit the lolly-gagging and get to the point—it’s time to unify these titles.

Diaz, a UFC veteran himself, hasn’t fought in the organization since 2006, when he defeated Gleison Tibau to bring his Octagon record to 6-4. Though the 6-4 record doesn’t strike many as being a particularly impressive showing in the world’s biggest MMA company, it’s worth noting that Diaz was never finished in any of his four losses and even lost one of the fights by split decision to Karo Parisyan.

Ever since he debuted for Strikeforce in April 2009, though, Diaz has been on an absolute war path, winning the Strikeforce Welterweight title and destroying all challengers. However, until his recent victory over fellow UFC veteran Paul Daley in April, Diaz hadn’t really faced a fighter that could even be considered a top-20 welterweight in years.

With the Strikeforce welterweight division completely depleted of much talent, Diaz began calling out Georges St-Pierre. St-Pierre recently defeated Diaz’s Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu teammate Jake Shields, which likely added fuel to a fire burning within Diaz to defeat the world’s top-ranked welterweight.

But putting Diaz in a fight for the UFC welterweight title is a disaster waiting to happen when it comes to the value of these two titles. With only St-Pierre’s title being on the line, it seems obvious that the Strikeforce title is taking a major backseat to the UFC title.

While the UFC title is defended on pay-per-view, the Strikeforce title will likely never see its way onto a pay-per-view broadcast unless Diaz wears it to the ring to fight St-Pierre.

Certainly no one is trying to say that the Strikeforce brand should be higher than or even equal to the status level of the UFC, but this is essentially saying that the Strikeforce Welterweight Championship is a hunk of junk when compared to the UFC Welterweight Championship. Whether or not that is true is a matter of personal opinion, but the organization which owns these two promotions shouldn’t be helping to spread that fire.

If St-Pierre dominates the fight as many experts are predicting he will, he will remain champion in the UFC. But what happens to Diaz’s Strikeforce title?

Supposedly Diaz will remain the Strikeforce Welterweight Champion regardless of the outcome of his fight against St-Pierre, but that doesn’t mean that its credibility will be the same.

As the only Strikeforce champion in that division’s history, Nick Diaz represents everything that the company’s 170-pound division has to offer. He has defeated every opponent with relative ease in most cases and has been complaining about the lack of competition in the promotion for some time now.

If Diaz does lose to St-Pierre, what value does the Strikeforce title even have?

Georges St-Pierre isn’t coming over to fight for Strikeforce anytime soon, but Nick Diaz is already catching heat from some fans who believe that him leapfrogging the current UFC welterweight competition into an immediate title shot is a joke. It’s not a joke, but it sure would be a convenient way to further discredit the already questionable value of the Strikeforce Welterweight Title, wouldn’t it?

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Diaz comes in and completely squashes the UFC 170-pound champion, but early betting lines already have him as a major underdog in this fight. The overwhelming number of experts are picking St-Pierre to retain his title, sending Diaz back to Strikeforce with his tail between his legs to defend his lowly Strikeforce title against questionable-at-best competition.

Wouldn’t it just make sense, at this point, to combine the UFC and Strikeforce titles into one? If the champion from one organization is going to compete for the other organization’s title instead of defending his own, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

There’s still plenty time to make this a title unification fight. Make the right call, guys.