For better or worse, welterweight division primed for a shakeup at UFC 158

Let’s not pretend like we didn’t know what UFC officials were thinking when they put together the UFC 158 fight card.

You see a welterweight title fight co-starring Nick Diaz, that unpredictable superhero of “anti-bulls—” at the top of the card, followed by two more high-profile welterweight fights right below it, and it’s hard not to think the UFC was giving itself some back-up options there. Just look at this week’s “UFC 158 Countdown” show in which we go back in time to UFC President Dana White’s angry appearance at the UFC 137 pre-fight press conference. You know, the one Diaz didn’t show up for. No, I mean the other one he didn’t… ah, you get it.

“Am I supposed to move forward with this fight feeling confident that this kid’s going to show up to the fight?” White said when explaining his decision to take Diaz’s shot at Georges St-Pierre and give it to Carlos Condit. “I’d rather pull the fight now than have him not show up the night of the event.”

Even back then this seemed a tad hysterical. If there’s one part of this business that you know Diaz is likely to make it to, it’s the actual fighting part. (Remember, this was before he no-showed a grappling match with Braulio Estima, which took Diaz’s reputation for flakiness to a whole new level.) It seemed like what White was really afraid of was not that Diaz would ditch the fight, but that he’d blow off everything else leading up to it, just like he blew off Wednesday’s open workouts in Montreal.

Also, not sure if you’ve noticed this or not, but White isn’t exactly the type of man who’s used to being ignored, or used to forgiving and forgetting when he feels slighted by an employee. Removing Diaz from that first title fight seemed mostly like promotional prudence, but it also had the added benefit of reminding every fighter on the roster that Dana White giveth and Dana White taketh away.

Fast forward to 2013, and the UFC has clearly learned its lesson. The GSP-Diaz fight is still the moneymaker, still the ones fans want to see (even if it requires a bit of blind-eye turning in order to justify), but Diaz is still Diaz. As we were reminded on Wednesday, scheduling him for a public appearance is sometimes more of a wish than a plan. At this point, given his love of marijuana and disdain for other people’s rules, maybe we should just be glad he made it into Canada in the first place.

That’s why it’s nice to have options, particularly of the 170-pound variety. By stacking this fight card with welterweight contenders such as Johnny Hendricks, Jake Ellenberger, Carlos Condit and, at least originally, Rory MacDonald, the UFC wisely built a lineup that could stand a little reshuffling. The good news is, the injury bug only bit once, and not in the main event, while Diaz has been on his best behavior (by Diaz standards, anyway).

The end result is one night that could shake up the UFC’s welterweight division in healthy new ways – or leave it more confused than ever.

For instance, look at the plight of poor Johny Hendricks, who’s arguably done more than any UFC fighter in any division to earn a title shot. He keeps winning fights, keeps saying he’ll wait for his chance to fight for the belt, and then keeps getting talked into taking one more fight. Because hey, how much money is he going to make on his couch, watching Diaz get the shot that ought to be his and mumbling bitter complaints into his own beard? Of course Hendricks decided to roll the dice again, even though both he and the UFC have plenty to lose in the gamble.

Say Hendricks loses to Condit while GSP beats Diaz. What then? You can’t throw Condit back in with the same champ who beat him soundly a few months ago. Not if you expect anyone to pay for it. And if Nate Marquardt beats Ellenberger at the same time, then you have an occasional teammate of GSP’s who’s 1-1 in his past two fights. If there’s an argument for upping the pressure on St-Pierre to move up in search of a superfight with Anderson Silva, that’s it right there.

The good news for the UFC is, that’s pretty much the only situation where this parade of welterweight talent won’t lead to interesting new possibilities by Sunday morning. With almost any other combination of outcomes, there’s a clear way forward for the division, all thanks to one easily digestible night of action. Fans will get to see it all unfold right before their eyes. They’ll be invested, already primed and ready for whatever comes next.

And what will come next? Well, If GSP and Hendricks are both victorious, you simply throw them in a cage together the way a bored, sadistic child might seal two terrifying insects in the same jar. If Condit knocks Hendricks back to the middle of the pack, then it’s Ellenberger’s chance to make his case. Meanwhile, if Diaz manages to buck the long odds (GSP is currently as high as a 5-to-1 favorite, according to online sportsbooks) in order to become the new UFC welterweight champion, well, that’s a shake-up that even he might not be ready for.

Have we considered that possibility? Has the UFC? Has Diaz? Do we really have any idea what it would do to him if he actually got everything he wanted – the UFC title, the money, the pampering, the whole deal?

To put it gently, Diaz seems like a bit of a pessimist. If you try to explain how he might improve his situation, as GSP did on last week’s media call, all you get in return is an expletive-laden explanation of why that’s real nice for you but won’t work for him. If you give him something he claims to want – say, for instance, a title fight with St-Pierre that he was asking for even when he was under contract to a competing promotion – he somehow makes it seem like he’s an indentured servant being pressed into an unreasonable labor.

As Diaz’s manager/trainer Cesar Gracie put it on the “Countdown” show: “I think with Nick, if he can’t complain, it’s foreign territory to him. If everything’s perfect, he’s going to make it imperfect.”

And how do you take a UFC title, which would likely come with enough cash to fill your Honda Civic from floorboards to sunroof, and turn that into a bad thing? I really don’t know. But if there’s anyone who can figure it out, it’s Diaz.

For more on UFC 158, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.