(Cincinnati, Ohio) - Former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich "Ace" Franklin today announced that he incurred a torn labrum (shoulder injury) in training 10 days ago, and after consulting with specialists, will undergo minor surgery next Tuesday, September 13.
For 24 hours Nick Diaz was out of UFC 137.
Now, he is back on the card, but not with his original opponent.
UFC President Dana White announced via Twitter that Diaz (25-7, 1 NC) will be facing former UFC Lightweight and Welterweight Champion BJ Penn (16-7-2) at UFC 137 in Las Vegas.
When fighters are given the opportunity to fight for a world championship, 99.9 percent of them would do everything above and beyond to maximize the chance they were given. When you say 99.9%, who would the .1% be? That would be Nick Diaz.
Dana White had no other option than to pull Nick Diaz from his championship fight with Georges St-Pierre at UFC 137 when he decided not to show up for the press tour. His replacement was none other than Carlos Condit. The fans immediate reaction was very negative towards Nick not showing up, but from this video that Nick released yesterday you can see that they should not be judging too soon.
We don’t know the facts so to judge someone like Nick Diaz right off the hop, like so many have done, is wrong. As of right now the UFC is not saying much. All we know as fans is that Nick Diaz no showed two large press conferences to promote his fight with GSP at UFC 137 on October 29th. The reasons? Time will only tell. Caesar Gracie stated today that Nick is not a fan of press and media before a fight and that he deals with a disorder. We have seen Nick Diaz pull stunts like this before but not to this degree.
At todays UFC 137 Press Conference, Dana White made the announcement that Nick Diaz has lost his opportunity to fight for the welterweight championship against Georges St-Pierre at UFC 137 and will be replaced by Carlos Condit.
The long anticipated match-up between UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre and Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz is coming up next month, but the two will go face to face today at the UFC 137 Press Conference.
Just two days after Josh Koscheck announced that he had a fight in just 19 days, the UFC announced it was official that he would step up and face Matt Hughes at UFC 135 in Denver, Colorado after Diego Sanchez withdrew due to a broken hand.
Today is a day full of fight announcements. The next one to hit the list is none other than rising welterweight Rory MacDonald who will be taking on veteran Brian Ebersole at UFC 140 in Toronto, Canada.
After plenty of speculation as to who Brock Lesnar would be fighting for his comeback fight and whether the UFC would sign Alistair Overeem, those speculations have been put to rest.
