Cesar Gracie will ask to bypass Carlos Condit for shot at GSP if Nick Diaz stops B.J. Penn at UFC 137

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With Georges St-Pierre suffering a couple of leg injuries, taking him out of this weekend's UFC 137 card, the UFC held out Carlos Condit to face St-Pierre in early 2012. However, if Cesar Gracie has his way, it will be Nick Diaz jumping into that spot should he defeat B.J. Penn in impressive fashion on Saturday night.

"This is the UFC so there's always that chance," Gracie said in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. "There's no question about it that I will ask for that if Nick has a tremendous performance and he can finish B.J., I would ask for that."

"But the biggest thing is if the fans want it. If the fans all ask for that, Dana [White] is a smart guy. He knows the sport is about the fans. So who knows?"

Should Diaz defeat Penn in impressive fashion at UFC 137, he'll have an argument for earning the shot, but after what happened into the originally scheduled fight with St-Pierre, that may not be enough to bypass Condit's shot.

Penick's Analysis: I don't think the UFC would have held him out if they were entertaining the notion of slotting someone ahead of him out of this fight, but that could also be something they simply hadn't thought of. It's dependent upon Diaz actually pulling off the win, of course, but even if he does so in impressive fashion, the fight with St-Pierre is going to sell on St-Pierre's name and not his opponent at this point. Condit has just as much earned a shot at the title as Diaz, even if Diaz defeats Penn, so it would still be hard to argue for putting Diaz ahead of Condit, especially with Condit being kept on the sidelines specifically for the title fight.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_10964.shtml

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