UFC 137: 5 Reasons Carlos Condit Is a Bigger Threat to GSP Than Nick Diaz Was

Some of the drama for the UFC 137 main event may be gone, but is Carlos Condit a bigger threat to Georges St-Pierre than Nick Diaz was?

The question seems almost absurd on the surface. I mean, Diaz is a consensus top-five welterweight in the world who has barely even been challenged by his opponents in recent years. His crazy combination of boxing and jiu-jitsu makes him unbelievably dangerous to anyone.

But while Diaz has been very vocal about wanting to be known as the best in the world, Carlos Condit has been a silent but violent top contender. His run as the WEC welterweight champion began in March 2007, and he only stopped defending the title because the WEC wanted to focus on smaller weight classes.

Like Diaz, Condit never actually lost his title.

Now he is getting the chance of a lifetime to fight Georges St-Pierre in the main event of UFC 137 for the biggest welterweight crown in the world.

Condit will certainly be listed as the underdog going into this fight, but it is completely realistic to believe that he has a better chance of beating St-Pierre than Nick Diaz. Here are five of the biggest reasons why.

Level of Competition

Both Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz have been very dominant in recent years, almost to the level of St-Pierre. Diaz has not lost in over three years, while Condit has assembled an impressive 12-1 record since 2006, with his only loss coming in a controversial split-decision loss to Martin Kampmann back in April 2009.

But the difference between these two fighters’ streaks is that while Nick Diaz has padded his record by beating up on a variety of lower-level opponents like “Cyborg” Santos, Muhsin Corbbrey and Thomas Denny, Condit has been making a push at the elite in the welterweight division.

While it is true that Condit hasn’t fought any of the truly top-level opponents such as Jon Fitch, BJ Penn or Josh Koscheck, he has made a name for himself by fighting against top-10 (or very close to top-10) opponents in each of his past five fights, dating back to the loss against Kampmann.

Condit edged Jake Ellenberger in a split decision of his own before moving on to become the first person to defeat Rory MacDonald, when he knocked out the highly touted welterweight at UFC 115. From there, Condit smashed both Dan Hardy and Dong Hyun Kim in back-to-back knockout victories.

While there is no doubting the level of dominance that Diaz has had in recent years, there is still a very real question as to whether or not he could do the same against actual top opponents. The one time he fought an opponent who was even close to being in the top 10 was in his last fight against Paul Daley. Diaz won the fight but was nearly knocked out twice in the first round.

Variety of Striking

While Nick Diaz is well known as having some of the best boxing skills in the welterweight division, it may be Carlos Condit who actually poses a bigger threat for Georges St-Pierre when the fight is on its feet.

"I do believe this is a more dangerous fight," St-Pierre admitted to MMAJunkie on Wednesday afternoon. "Condit has way more power, way more diversity of attack than Nick Diaz. He's got very good jiu-jitsu. He's not only good with his hands standing up, he's got knees, elbows, kicks. I think he's going to be a way more dangerous opponent than Nick Diaz."

Even the champion himself knows that Condit is a different and more diverse opponent than his previous challenger. Certainly Diaz’s pure boxing skills are more dangerous, but Condit can attack in many more ways given his Muay Thai kickboxing background.

When is the last time we’ve even seen Diaz throw a kick, let alone finish someone off with one?

Striking Defense

GSP has avoided bringing fights to the ground against fighters with good ground games in the past. Most recently, the welterweight champion remained content with outboxing Diaz’s teammate Jake Shields on the feet, jamming away at him while keeping himself out of harm’s way.

Given the effectiveness of both Diaz and Condit’s ground games, it would not be surprising at all if we saw St-Pierre deploy a very similar technique to go after either of these two challengers.

We’ve seen Condit and Diaz both be very effective with their own striking in the past, but which one of them is more effective at avoiding opponents' strikes?

According to FightMetric statistics, the two fighters have remained relatively similar throughout their careers in terms of total strikes absorbed, with Diaz avoiding 67 percent of his opponents' total strikes, while Condit has avoided 61 percent of his opponents' total strikes. But the real difference comes when we talk about the significant strikes that have been landed.

The numbers show that while Carlos Condit has absorbed approximately 1.66 significant strikes per minute in his fights, Nick Diaz checks in at almost double that number with 3.01 significant strikes absorbed per minute.

Georges St-Pierre isn’t known as a high-impact striker, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize that landing twice as many big shots on an opponent throughout a 25-minute fight is typically going to cause some changes in the outcome of a fight.

Success Against Wrestlers

If St-Pierre does try to bring the fight to the ground, as many believe he will, he will have a tough time against one of the most skilled bottom-fighters in the welterweight division in Carlos Condit.

Though Nick Diaz’s bottom-game is widely regarded as perhaps the best in the entire MMA welterweight division, Carlos Condit does not trail very far behind. We saw this talent on display most recently when Condit fought another high-level wrestler in Dong Hyun Kim.

Kim was controlling Condit on the ground early in their UFC 132 fight, standing above his opponent against the fence in a position that is normally a very tough one to escape. But Condit used a butterfly guard to sweep his opponent, flipping him over his head and immediately gaining top control himself.

While we shouldn’t expect to see Georges St-Pierre make the same kind of mistakes that Dong Hyun Kim did, it will have to be in the back of the Canadian’s head that his opponent is capable of completely changing the location of the fight in the blink of an eye. He could even slap on a surprise submission from the bottom if St-Pierre isn’t careful.

On the flip side, Nick Diaz has struggled mightily over his career against wrestlers. Fighters like Diego Sanchez, Joe Riggs and Sean Sherk effectively controlled Diaz in three straight fights. Though these fighters are all pretty darn good, they are simply not on the level that Georges St-Pierre is. Predicting more controlling wrestling against Diaz would be a pretty safe bet in a fight against GSP.

He’s Not Scared, Homie

Whether or not Diaz fans want to admit it, it is very likely that their favorite fighter just simply did not want to step into the cage against the guy whom many consider the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Georges St-Pierre.

This is a guy who went out of his way to call out the UFC champion following his teammate Jake Shields’ loss to him at UFC 129. Main-eventing a UFC pay-per-view was Diaz’s chance to make the huge money that he has been saying he deserves for years. It was a chance to put himself into the mainstream. But he threw it all away. Why?

Yes, Diaz has the tools to beat St-Pierre, but does he have the confidence? Judging by his actions and his subsequent dismissal of the whole situation, it doesn’t appear that he does.

But Carlos Condit has all of the confidence in the world. He doesn’t speak as openly as Diaz does about situations like desiring a title fight or wanting more money, but his actions have spoken louder than words for a long, long time.

"We really haven't trained together at all," Condit told USA Today regarding working with St-Pierre at Greg Jackson’s camp in the recent past. "This fight has kind of been on the horizon. I think we've both seen [it] coming.

"We train at a camp with the best fighters in the world, and eventually we're bound to meet up in a title match," he added. "Honestly, it's the kind of problem that you want to have at a camp, having the two best guys in the world fighting at your place."

That’s the kind of confidence that breeds a champion. This guy has specifically avoided training with St-Pierre to avoid any awkwardness that might come with this fight. Most people would call it insane to not train with the guy who is arguably the best in the world, but for Condit, it was purely his destiny.

Don’t look for there to be a Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans type of blowout between these two calm, collected professionals. There won’t be much trash talk, and there won’t be the “champion-versus-champion” aspect that Diaz brought to the table, but the fight between St-Piere and Condit has every opportunity to be not only as good, but even better than the fight it is replacing.