He's Back!

With football season going on, it's been hard to keep up with MMA. I'm dedicating this post to some thoughts on MMA topics from the past month.

UFC 154: GSP-Condit

After a 19-month absence from the Octagon, Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre returns to defend his belt against Carlos Condit in Montreal. GSP will be looking for his tenth straight win and his 7th consecutive title defense. This is St. Pierre's biggest test to date, as he is not only battling "The Natural Born Killer", but he is also coming off an ACL tear that he suffered in October of 2011.

GSP and Condit were supposed to meet in October after Nick Diaz went crazy and was taken out of the main event title fight. St. Pierre had to back out of the fight with what he thought was a minor knee injury. Once the severity of his injury was known, Condit and Diaz fought for the Interim Welterweight Title, which Condit won in a controversial decision. After their fight, Diaz failed a drug test for marijuana and is currently serving a one-year suspension. In August, GSP was given the green light to return to training, and this unification fight was scheduled shortly after.

Condit isn't following in the footsteps of Dan Hardy or Josh Koscheck, instead the two have kept the build-up to the fight friendly, with mostly complimentary remarks being traded between the fighters. Both guys normally train under Greg Jackson, but Jackson has decided not to help either fighter (a decision he probably should have made when dealing with the Jon Jones-Rashad Evans rivalry). Carlos is training mainly with Mike Winklejohn, while Georges has trained at Tristar Gym in Canada with Firas Zahabi.

As for the fight itself, it should be a competitive, but if St. Pierre is back to 100 percent, than I find it hard to see Condit winning. Carlos has knockout power, finishing Dan Hardy, Kim Dong-Hyung, and Rory MacDondald; before fighting conservatively against Diaz. St. Pierre will never be as flashy as Anderson Silva (I'll talk more about this if GSP wins on Saturday), but he is the most technically sound fighter in UFC history, and picks his opponents apart.

In the Co-Main Event, Martin Kampmann and Johny Hendricks battle for a potential number one contender in the Welterweight division. Hendricks made a name for himself knocking out Jon Fitch, but didn't look impressive in a split decision win against Josh Koscheck. Kampmann is coming off of a big knockout win against Jake Ellenberger. This has Fight of the Night potential.

As for the rest of the card, there are a lot of exciting fights on paper. Submission expert Francis Carmont takes on "Filthy" Tom Lawlor. Costa Phillipou and Nick Ring is a matchup of two good BJJ fighters. Finally, the always exciting Mark Hominick battles Pablo Garza in a Featherweight battle.

RIP Strikeforce: 2006-201

In a move that doesn't come as much of a shock, Zuffa announced that Strikeforce's last show will take place in January, with all fighters being swallowed up by the UFC, including their women's division. Since Zuffa purchased the company in March of 2011 most of their top level talent has already made the switch, including Jake Shields, Nick Diaz, Dan Henderson, and "Mayhem" Miller.

This is mixed news for fans of the sport. On one hand it's good because UFC fans will see dream matches with the Strikeforce stars Gilbert Melendez, Luke Rockhold, Josh Thompson, and Daniel Cormier. In effect, UFC cards will be deeper and with recurring injuries that's a huge plus. Also, with Showtime canceling two events in the past year, Strikeforce was beginning to give Zuffa a black eye. 

More importantly perhaps is the addition of women's MMA to the UFC. Bottom line is that Ronda Rousey has become a superstar of the sport, and she became impossible for Dana to keep his hands off of her (not that way, you creeps). A superfight between Rousey and Cris Cyborg is going to give the UFC a HUGE main event for a Fox show in the future. 

The negative is that UFC loses another competitor (even though they technically own them), and there are going to be less fight cards (and jobs for fighters). It's going to be interesting to see how Dana White reacts with some UFC-castoffs that he had/has feuds with, including Frank Shamrock and Nate Marquardt.   

Strikeforce is welcomed by Pride and World Extreme Cagefighting as now the third promotion to first be bought by Zuffa then intergrated into the UFC. 

Jones/Sonnen

It was announced that Chael Sonnen gets his wish again, and will be fighting Jon Jones for the Light Heavyweight Title in Newark in April, after the two coach opposing teams in The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). MMA purists were up in arms over how a guy coming off a title loss in another division is getting a title fight at another division, but I for one love it. 

UFC is a business, and fans want to see Chael and Jon fight. This already has the potential to have one of the biggest buy rates of next year. Sonnen is the master at selling fights, whether you're a fan of his or you want to pay to see him get his ass kicked. He used the situation over the summer to talk himself into another blockbuster fight, and I can't blame him. 

Plus it helps save a fledgling TUF franchise. The past few years, TUF has grown stale, and the shown has seen record low ratings on FX with it's current Friday night time slot. FX already announced that with these superstar coaches, they would move Ultimate Fighter to a weeknight where it would get more eyeballs.