UFC News: Fight For The Troops Tonight + Major Fight?
– UFC president Dana White said if both UFC Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva prove successful in their next title defense, they could meet in a rare champion-vs.-champion fight later this year. "If they both win their fights, that fight makes all the sense in the world," White said. Silva (27-4 MMA, 12-0 UFC) looks to defend his belt for a record eighth time when he meets Vitor Belfort in the headliner of next month's UFC 126 event. St-Pierre (21-2 MMA, 15-2 UFC) goes for his sixth straight title defense against Jake Shields in April at UFC 129. Both champs are expected to win. "If that happens, then we're probably going to do that fight," White said. "I don't like guys fighting each other at different weights until they've done what those two have done, and they've both done it." But White expects the 170-pound St-Pierre to make a permanent move to 185 pounds if he were to fight Silva, marking his debut in the middleweight division. "Georges St-Pierre would move to 185 and stay at that weight and not go back to 170," White said.
– With that being said, Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz (23-7 MMA, 4-0 SF) is scheduled to face Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos (18-13 MMA, 1-0 SF) soon, but Diaz has his eyes on the more distant future – where he'd love to take on UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Diaz called out the UFC champs Thursday during a conference call in support of next Saturday's "Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg," which takes place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA. "I think my partner is going to take him out," Diaz said after calling out St-Pierre while referring to Jake Shields, who meets St-Pierre in the main event of UFC 129. Diaz feels St-Pierre and other big names were handed out "gimmes" against sub-standard competition while he was given a steady stream of harder fights. An example, he said, was Josh Koscheck, who fought Chris Sanford in his first post-reality show appearance. Diaz says Sanford was not prepared. "He was set up to fight Josh Koscheck, and then he takes an ass-whooping," Diaz said. "That's what I'm saying. They made easy fights for those guys. I never fought anybody like that guy that I had brought to fight against Koscheck." Diaz argues that policies like this make St-Pierre and Silva's high rankings dubious. "When you bring up guys like that to me and tell me they're the best fighters in the world, it's a [expletive] joke," Diaz said. "That's a joke to me...Straight up, people think this guy is better than me, and that's bull [expletive]. What do you guys want? You've got the guy ranked above me...You've got magazines with all these Abercrombie-looking [expletive] fighters walking around and cutting weight."
– Here are the weigh-in results for tonight's UFC Fight Night 23: UFC Fights for the Troops 2. The show airs LIVE tonight for free on SpikeTV. Everyone made weight?
MAIN CARD
Evan Dunham (156) vs. Melvin Guillard (155)
Tim Hague (256.5) vs. Matt Mitrione (260)
Mark Hominick (145.5) vs. George Roop (145)
Pat Barry (240) vs. Joey Beltran (230)
Cole Miller (155.5) vs. Matt Wiman (155)
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook)
Yves Edwards (155) vs. Cody McKenzie (155)
Mike Guymon (170.5) vs. DaMarques Johnson (170)
PRELIMINARY CARD
Mike Brown (146) vs. Rani Yahya (145)
Willamy "Chiquerim" Freire (155) vs. Waylon Lowe (156)
Amilcar Alves (171) vs. Charlie Brenneman (171)
Chris Cariaso (135) vs. Will Campuzano (135)