UFC 158: St-Pierre vs. Diaz is live on PPV tonight coming from the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Georges St-Pierre is defending the UFC Welterweight Championship against the former Strikeforce Welterweight Champion, Nick Diaz. There are also two other welterweight fights at the top of the card including Johny Hendricks vs. Carlos Condit which could end up determining the number one contender, and Jake Ellenberger vs. Nate Marquardt. The rest of the fight card is really weak with them focusing a lot of the promotion around the title fight and not much else on the prelims or even bottom two fights of the main card. The first two fights being aired on the PPV are fights that might not have even been aired on some prelim specials on FX. The Mike Ricci-Colin Fletcher fight might be the worst fight to actually air on PPV in a long time.
UFC 158 Preview:
Main Card on PPV:
This fight has been talked about now for over three years and it is finally happening tonight. When Diaz won the Strikeforce Welterweight Championship it looked as if he was the biggest challenge for GSP outside of the UFC and when he eventually made his arrival the two would fight for the championship to determine who was the best guy at 170.
Diaz went unbeaten while champion in Strikeforce as he successfully defended the title against K.J. Noons, Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos and Paul Daley before coming over to the UFC. Diaz also defeated Hayato "Mach" Sakurai in DREAM during that time span. When Diaz first came to the UFC he was to meet GSP for the championship, but he failed to show up for media appearances and had the title fight taken away from him. When he defeated BJ Penn he was reawarded a title shot against the champion, GSP. Heading into the fight with GSP, the champion would eventually suffer an injury which led to Diaz fighting Carlos Condit for the interim title. In the interim title fight Condit came out victorious with Diaz testing positive for marijuana. Diaz was suspended for a year due to marijuana and is making his return to action tonight against the champion in a fight that he was waited so long for.
GSP has been the undisputed UFC Welterweight Champion now for almost five straight years. The champion hasn't tasted defeat since being upset by Matt Serra at UFC 69 which happened almost six years ago. As champion GSP has defeated Jon Fitch, BJ Penn, Thiago Alves, Dan Hardy, Josh Koscheck, Jake Shields and Carlos Condit, with some arguing that he may even be the pound-for-pound champion in all of MMA. In my opinion GSP is the second best fighter in all of MMA right now behind only the UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. A potential fight between GSP and Silva might come to fruition later this year if GSP is able to defeat Diaz and possibly Hendricks with Silva having to defeat Chris Weidman later this year.
I have been wanting to see this fight now for a long time now. Diaz is one of the only top welterweights left for GSP to defend his title against with Johny Hendricks being the only other guy that might be deserving of a title shot with a win tonight. I see this fight being fought all over the Octagon. On the feet Diaz will have the boxing advantage but GSP will have the all-around striking advantage as he utilizes kickboxing and Muay Thai as well. On the ground GSP will have the wrestling advantage with Diaz having the jiu-jitsu advantage. I see this fight being relatively even with the main question being, will either guy be able to finish the other? I don't think either guy will be able to knock the other one out, but I'm thinking that GSP might get too comfortable on the ground and eventually get caught with a submission in one of the later rounds. These guys will more than likely put on an absolute war because of the hatred between the two.
My Prediction: Diaz wins via submission (round 3).
Hendricks is fighting for the chance to earn his title shot against the winner of GSP-Diaz. Hendricks only has one loss in his professional career to Rick Story and is currently on a five-fight win streak. Outside of that loss he has wins over Amir Sadollah, Mike Pierce, Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck and Martin Kampmann. His current win streak has been very impressive with three knockout victories over some of the best fighters in the 170 pound division.
Condit is making his first appearance since losing the to GSP back in November when the two fought for the undisputed UFC Welterweight Championship. Even if Condit were victorious tonight I doubt he would get an immediate title shot and will likely have to win at least one or two more fights before he gets that opportunity again. The former interim UFC Champion has defeated Jake Ellenberger, Rory MacDonald, Dan Hardy, Dong-Hyun Kim and Nick Diaz since coming to the UFC from the WEC where he was also champion.
While Hendricks has proven himself to be one of the best guys at 170, I'm not sure if he's one of the top three guys in the division. I think GSP, Diaz and the guy he's fighting tonight, Condit, are all one tier ahead of him right now. The reason behind that is that I believe those three are well-rounded fighters where the rest of the division has weaknesses in their techniques. I'm expecting Condit to use his grappling game as well as his kickboxing to pull off the win tonight and move closer to a rematch with either GSP or Diaz.
My Prediction: Condit wins via TKO (round 2).
Welterweight: Jake Ellenberger (28-6) vs. Nate Marquardt (32-11-2)
The last main fight of the night is between two guys that have come so close to being at the top, with each of them falling short when getting close. Ellenberger was about to get a title shot against GSP, but was knocked out by Martin Kampmann two fights ago. Marquardt lost to Anderson Silva for the middleweight championship over five years ago and could have come over to the UFC as the Strikeforce Welterweight Champion had he not overlooked Tarec Saffiedine.
Since coming to the UFC Ellenberger has only lost twice and has beaten some very quality opponents in Jake Shields, Diego Sanchez and Jay Hieron. Marquardt has been a fighter that hasn't really put together a huge win streak in his career as he has struggled with consistency. While in the UFC he has wins over Jeremy Horn, Martin Kampmann, Demian Maia and Rousimar Palhares.
I think in tonight's fight that Marquardt might have a lot of trouble with Ellenberger. Marquardt hasn't been someone that has gotten finished often in his career with only three defeats in 45 fights coming by either knockout or submission so I'm expecting this fight to go to a decision. Ellenberger will likely be the stronger and faster fighter of the two as Marquardt is on the wrong side of 30. I'm expecting Ellenberger to use his boxing and wrestling to win while not giving Marquardt many good opportunities.
My Prediction: Ellenberger wins via unanimous decision.
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