Diaz camp says Condit is a tougher fight than GSP; Zahabi says champ rushed too hard into training
The shock of no Georges St-Pierre for another year is beginning to settle in around the MMA world.
UFC president Dana White tweeted earlier today that the promotion's 170-pound champ "blew out his ACL."
GSP's opponent at UFC 143, Nick Diaz found out that he's now facing Carlos Condit in what will be a UFC welterweight interim title fight.
MMAjunkie caught up with Diaz's manager Cesar Gracie for his take on the new fight:
"I believe he's better than GSP standing and not as good a wrestler, and [he doesn't have] as good of a top game," Gracie said. "I believe standing up, Condit is actually a more formidable opponent. So Nick is not known to force a takedown, so it's actually a harder fight, as far as standing."
St-Pierre's trainer Firas Zihabi said everyone is disappointed about the torn ACL, but also said the fighter suffered the injury by rushing back from his previous knee injury.
"I've been telling him to take it easy now and let his knee heal 100 percent, and he just always tries to find a way to work around it," Zahabi said. "But now, he's going to require surgery, so there's just no way around a surgery. You've got to do it, you've got to rest, and that's the bottom line."
"It's hard to get Georges to take time off and rest. It's a very challenging thing to do as his trainer. He's very motivated to train, and sometimes too much is too much. The mind is stronger than the body, so sometimes the body can't keep up, and I feel that that's what happened with Georges."
Anyone else worried about St-Pierre returning at 100 percent for the next few years? If he suffered a full ACL tear, that's a rough injury to return from in just 10 months.
