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A: It's not true. As a matter of fact, not only is it not true, but it saddens me that people even take this stance against athletes fighting to win.
First of all, Carlos Condit is one of, if not the most consistently entertaining fighters in mixed martial arts. It blows my mind that a fighter like him can spend ten years of his life finishing fighters left and right, go the distance just twice and still be written off as a "technical bore."
Heading into the Nick Diaz fight, most people figured Condit would lose because on paper his usual unbelievably aggressive style would play right into Diaz's hands. Condit and his team put together a style to counter Diaz's pressure fighting tactics and they got vilified for it; I think that's ridiculous.
The fact is there are some fighters that you just can't beat in an entertaining fashion and Nick Diaz is one of them. Knocking Nick Diaz out is more or less off the table, so aggressively pursuing that type of finish is mostly a fruitless endeavor. The Diaz brothers routinely set records with the amount of punches they land in fights so standing in the pocket and trying to outland them there is obviously a mistake too. Nick Diaz is probably a better grappler than Carlos Condit, so he probably wasn't going to win there either.
Really, if Condit were to fight Diaz the way he usually fights, he would have lost. And the thing about it is, fans wouldn't respect him for that. We saw Donald Cerrone try to push the pace against Nick Diaz last December, and he got hacked apart for his troubles.
Did anyone praise Cerrone for being exciting? No. People ridiculed him for playing right into Diaz's hands and threw the whole Jackson's MMA team under the bus for coming in with such a piss poor gameplan.
As far as Georges St-Pierre goes, people need to let go of the idea that GSP was ever some sort balls to the wall striker who aggressively pursued knockouts; the guy won his UFC debut by wrestling Karo Parisyan to the ground and grappling him en route to a three round decision.
I'm not going to lie and say that St-Pierre hasn't become a bit risk averse over the years, but he's also not the absolute worst fighter in the word to watch either.
Whenever Condit and St-Pierre meet, I expect GSP to look to get the fight to the floor as often as he can and I expect Condit to try to look to fly through the air and knock St-Pierre unconscious whenever he can. If Carlos Condit comes out looking to point fight with St-Pierre, he'd be playing into his GSP's strengths and he'd probably lose.
Elvin writes: Why was Dana White so quick to create an interim belt for the welterweight division but balked at the idea for an interim Light Heavyweight belt when Shogun was out for a year plus?
A: First of all, Shogun wasn't out for a year plus; he wasn't even out for a year. Rua won the UFC Light Heavyweight Title on May 8, 2010 and then next fought on March 19, 2011.
Georges St-Pierre suffered a knee injury that stopped him from defending his title last October and then another injury that prevented him from fighting last February. For a while it was doubtful GSP would even be able to compete in 2012. It's already been over a year since GSP's last title defense and if he has any sort of setback in his recovery, it could be even longer before we see him in the Octagon.
GSP was out for so long and there were so many contenders that it actually made sense for the UFC to create an interim championship. Well at least it did before Condit decided not fight again until St-Pierre returned.
Back in 2010, Rashad Evans was the clear number one contender and there weren't even any other obvious contenders to fight him for an interim championship.
Yanni writes: I'd love your opinion on Anderson Silva vs. Jon Jones at 205lbs (assuming the fight to take place tomorrow, with both fighters uninjured).
A: Anderson Silva is probably the best MMA fighter we've seen to this point, but Jon Jones would be a horrible style match up for him; he just has too many physical advantages, including being 13 years Silva's junior.
As great as Anderson Silva is, if Jones is overwhelming and physically dominating light heavyweights, why do people think bringing in middleweights is the answer? At the end of the day, even the greatest middleweight of all time is still just a middleweight.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter @JasonAmadi and direct your "Ask the Torch" questions to mmatorch@gmail.com
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