Last night on The Underground, a story broke that Carlos Condit had accepted a rematch with Nick Diaz following Condit’s decision win at UFC 143. The news set off a small chain of tweets that have left some wondering if the UFC bypassed the management of the fighters (especially Condit manager, Malki Kawa) in getting the fight done. It’s something that the UFC has done in the past, so it wouldn’t be shocking.
First, the news on The Underground:
However, sources close to the deal just confirmed with The Underground that Carlos Condit has accepted a rematch with Nick Diaz, with the UFC Interim Welterweight title again on the line.
Condit said ‘Yes, I accept the rematch’ and will be in Las Vegas on Friday to finalize the deal.
First, Ariel Helwani had a tweet reacting to the news:
Something Malki quickly backed up on his own Twitter:
More after the jump…
Update: Mistake with the headline given that Diaz has not accepted the fight that I know of. The fight isn’t official, simply Condit’s acceptance of it.
SBN coverage of UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit
Malki would reverse course thirty minutes later:
As I said earlier, it’s not unheard of for the UFC to bypass managers and try to get the fighters to agree to certain bouts directly as it is usually much easier for negotiations. A manager worth his salt would almost certainly go into negotiations for a rematch trying to get some sort of rematch clause added to the agreement, ensuring that if their fighter lost and the “series” became 1-1 they would be granted an immediate rematch.
If the UFC could simply go to Carlos and get an agreement to take the fight for just a small bump in pay or something along those lines, it basically kills the whole negotiating process and lines up the Diaz vs. Georges St. Pierre fight that they really want.
The phrasing on Dana’s twitter confirming the bout would seem to back that up to a degree:
While it’s certainly a difficult game to try to read into language, for Dana to say that the fight was accepted by Carlos “today” and not “just accepted” or “accepted tonight” makes me think that they did go directly to Carlos earlier in the day to work things out.
The end result is good for us fans though, Diaz and Condit stepping back into the cage for another go-round.
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