UFC 137 Fight Card: 5 Reasons We Can't Wait for Nick Diaz vs. B.J. Penn

The UFC 137 main event has gone through a whirlwind of changes since the original fight between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz was announced earlier this year. After some miscommunication and hard-headedness from Diaz, the former Strikeforce champion was then replaced by Carlos Condit. This moved knocked Diaz down to the semi-main event against B.J. Penn.

Things got even crazier recently when GSP had to drop out of the main event due to an injury, leaving Condit with the tough decision to drop out of the event himself to guarantee his eventual title shot and not create controversy if he were to lose a fight.

With St-Pierre vs. Condit now off, Diaz vs. Penn takes over as the main event of what was expected to be one of the bigger pay-per-view events of the year. Though some fans are unhappy about how things have turned out, the truth is that UFC 137 is still a very stacked card and the Diaz-Penn fight might actually be more entertaining than the original GSP-Condit fight.

The anticipation for Diaz-Penn continues to grow, and here are five reasons why we cannot wait for the UFC 137 main event!

5. Nick Diaz's UFC Return

It wasn’t long after Nick Diaz made his original debut in the UFC that he began to shoot up the worldwide MMA welterweight rankings. Diaz finished both Jeremy Jackson and Robbie Lawler before he lost a controversial split decision to Karo Parisyan at UFC 49 before winning knocking out Drew Fickett and Koji Oishi in back-to-back contests.

Things were looking very good for him, but Diaz went just 2-3 in his final five fights for the organization before he went overseas to compete in Pride FC.

Though he was up and down in the UFC, the Stockton, Calif. native has been unbelievably dominant outside the organization. He is currently riding a 10-fight win streak and is as high as No. 2 in the world on some worldwide welterweight rankings.

Now nearly five years since his last appearance, Diaz will return to the Octagon on Oct. 29 when he main events the event against B.J. Penn. It will be very interesting to see how the move back to the UFC affects him as we have seen countless fighters look great in smaller organizations only to fall short of expectations in the eight-sided cage. 

4. Does B.J. Penn Still Have "It"?

Though Nick Diaz will have more questions surrounding him heading into this fight, the biggest question regarding this fight might actually have to do with B.J. Penn.

“The Prodigy” has been widely considered one of the best 170-pound and 155-pound fighters in the world for years, but after falling to just 1-2-1 in his past four fights, some are beginning to wonder whether the former multi-division champion still has “it.”

By “it,” critics don’t mean the ability to still fight. More specifically, they mean his ability to be a champion.

Though Diaz is not the UFC welterweight champion, he is the undefeated Strikeforce welterweight champion and he would provide Penn a top-level opponent. Not only that, but unlike St-Pierre and Jon Fitch who were able to use their superior strength and wrestling to hold him down, Diaz is not the kind of fighter who is going to do that. Diaz’s wrestling leaves something to be desired, so if Penn gets beat, it will likely because he simply gets out-struck.

3. Jiu-Jitsu vs. Jiu-Jitsu

The Penn-Diaz fight will include two of the greatest jiu-jitsu practitioners in the welterweight division.

B.J. Penn’s experience in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is as decorated as almost any MMA fighter competing today, and he’s been doing it for a long time. Just weeks after receiving his black belt at the age of 21, Penn competed in the World Jiu-Jitsu Championships where he became the first non-Brazilian to ever win the black-belt division.

Nick Diaz may not have quite the accomplishments as a pure jiu-jitsu practitioner, but his work is every bit as slick and most would agree that he even has an even more active bottom-game than Penn. 

2. Boxing vs. Boxing

Both of these fighters are known for being extraordinarily skilled on the ground, but the true breaking point in this fight may very well take place on the feet.

Nick Diaz has competed as professional boxer and has even considered going back to the “sweet science” due to his dissatisfaction with the pay he has received in mixed martial arts.

He trains with Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward and has used his superior boxing skills to pick apart his recent opponents, most notably Paul Daley and Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos. He has taken punches, too, but the punishment he hands out is much worse than what he has taken.

B.J. Penn hasn’t boxed professionally, but that’s more due to him making more than enough in MMA for him to need to dabble in a boxing ring than it is his skills not being good enough.

As we have seen in his fights with Matt Hughes and in countless other contests, Penn’s technical boxing skills are excellent and his knockout power definitely still remains even into his 30s.

What will be most interesting in this boxing contest might not be who has the harder punches or who has the better technique, but rather who has the better chin.

1. Can Nick Diaz Defeat a Top-10 Opponent?

Mixed martial arts can be a crazy sport sometimes.

Nick Diaz’s dominance is unquestioned over the past handful of years. While other fighters, even Georges St-Pierre, have slipped and dropped fights to opponents who they “shouldn’t” lose to, Diaz has spent over five years dominating opponents. His only loss came via doctor’s stoppage due to a cut in his first fight against K.J. Noons. He later defeated Noons in a rematch, winning a unanimous decision in a five-round fight for the Strikeforce welterweight championship.

Diaz being a top-10 welterweight himself is really up for discussion at this point, but the debate gets heated when the discussion turns to just how high Diaz should be ranked. While some have him as high as No. 2 in the world, others have him as low as No. 5.

This disagreement stems largely from the competition that Diaz has fought outside of the UFC. While we have seen him easily crush lesser-talented fighters in EliteXC and Strikeforce, it has been a long time since we have seen Diaz actually fight a top-level opponent.

The last consensus top-10 opponent he defeated (the win was later overturned when Diaz tested positive for marijuana in a post-fight drug test) was Takanori Gomi—a lightweight—all the way back in 2007.

UFC 137 will be a big night for the legacy of B.J. Penn, but it will be a monumental night for the legacy of Nick Diaz.

Is he really as good as he says he is? Or is he just another fighter who builds his record in the minor leagues and doesn’t ever get over the plateau into being truly elite?