Carlos Condit has been back in action for all of two months and is already shaping up as one of the welterweight division’s biggest wild cards.
Prior to his comeback victory over Thiago Alves in May, it had been more than a year since we’d seen Condit inside the Octagon. The former UFC 170-pound interim champion missed significant time—and a few major divisional plot twists—as he rehabbed a knee injury suffered during a loss to Tyron Woodley.
Now, one second-round, technical-knockout victory later, here he is: No. 1 contender all over again.
The UFC went a bit outside the box on Wednesday, as it confirmed an earlier report by Bleacher Report’s Jeremy Botter that Condit will be next up for welterweight champion Robbie Lawler. According to UFC Tonight's Ariel Helwani (h/t MMAFighting.com), the two are set to headline UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia on November 14.
Despite the extended time off, Condit began the week at No. 4 on the UFC’s official welterweight rankings, so it’s not as though this booking is a huge stretch—but it’s also not exactly what we were expecting.
With Lawler coming off an impressive fifth-round TKO of Rory MacDonald at UFC 189, it was largely anticipated he’d fulfill his trilogy with former champion and No. 1-ranked challenger Johny Hendricks. Hendricks’ win over Matt Brown at UFC 185 in March kept his stock sky-high, and his first two bouts with Lawler were crowd-pleasing slugfests.
If not Hendricks, it seemed like an outside possibility that Woodley would get the call. The former University of Missouri wrestler is ranked ahead of Condit at No. 3 and is currently riding the wave of back-to-back wins over Dong Hyun Kim and Kelvin Gastelum.
All things considered, choosing Condit constitutes a bit of a swerve.
The two higher-ranked fighters didn't take it that well, either.
Woodley vented on Twitter:
Hendricks said his piece during a recent appearance on MMAjunkie Radio (h/t MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn):
I am pissed. You fight and you do the right things and then you get jumped. What do I need to do to stay relevant? What do I need to do to get back to that title? You’re sitting there and you’re going through all these things. Don’t get me wrong, I am still mad, but again, what can I do? The only thing I can do is go out there and train hard and get another win ... you just start beating everybody then next thing you know, there’s going to be nobody left but me.
Here's something that may or may not ease their minds: On the same day when the UFC confirmed Condit vs. Lawler, it also announced that Woodley and Hendricks will fight each other at UFC 192 in Houston on October 3.
So, to recap: No. 1 and No. 3 will face off in a certain title eliminator, while No. 4 gets the immediate title shot.
Not going to lie—that's kind of weird.
Even weirder? Nobody (besides T-Wood and Bigg Rigg) is complaining.
Condit vs. Lawler is as close to a surefire barnburner as you can get in this most unpredictable sport. Both men are all-action, strike-first fighters renowned for their technical savvy and viciousness. Putting them in the cage together is as good as twisting the fuses on two sticks of dynamite.
As noted by Bleacher Report's Jonathan Snowden, it’s also not totally outside the realm of possibility that Condit might win the thing:
Aside from his obvious stylistic synergy with Lawler, it’s anyone’s best guess why matchmakers chose to tab Condit over Hendricks or Woodley.
Condit’s victory over Alves—his first since the summer of 2013—was impressive, but it was instructive primarily in declaring the end of the 31-year-old Brazilian's run as a legitimate welterweight contender.
Alves rolled into the fight fresh from a come-from-behind win over Jordan Mein, but prior to that, he’d also been out of action for an extended period because of injury. The truth was he'd been just 4-4 in his last eight appearances before the Condit bout. After it, he announced he’ll drop to lightweight.
The "W" made Condit just 2-3 since November 2012, when he lost his interim title to the returning Georges St-Pierre. His other defeats during that stretch are to Woodley and Hendricks. Quality losses to be sure, but any way you look at it, they cast him as an odd choice to leapfrog those two men in the pecking order.
Perhaps matchmakers are just trying to toss a fresh log on the fire.
Since St-Pierre vacated the belt and eased into semi-retirement at the end of 2013, Lawler and Hendricks have had a stranglehold on the welterweight title picture. Their third fight was expected to be another great one, but might've also made the top end of the 170-pound division feel a tad insular.
For whatever reason, company executives have also never seemed totally sold on Woodley.
After his unanimous-decision loss to MacDonald at UFC 174, Dana White proclaimed that Woodley “chokes in big fights,” via MMAFighting.com’s Dave Doyle. Two months later, the UFC President asserted that Woodley wanted “no part” of a bout with fellow contender Hector Lombard, also according to Doyle.
So, if UFC brass didn’t exactly feel a burning itch to book Lawler-Hendricks III and thought Woodley still needed to prove himself, perhaps Condit appeared the best option moving forward.
MMA fans? We’ll take it. Gladly.
One of the greatest things about Lawler’s title reign, after all, is that he makes an exciting match with almost anyone in the top 10. The one thing everyone can agree on is that he and Condit are going to put on a show.
And that makes this the nice kind of surprise.
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