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#2 Nick Diaz (2013)
When the UFC’s parent company Zuffa bought out rival promoter StrikeForce in 2011, one of the most intriguing fights that was immediately talked about was between UFC Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, and his StrikeForce counterpart, Nick Diaz.
And despite initially looking to keep StrikeForce as a separate entity, the UFC couldn’t help but bite and so they put the fight together for October 2011’s UFC 137 show.
Unfortunately, the fight fell apart when Diaz refused to commit to some media appearances. Carlos Condit was bumped up in his stead and Diaz was matched instead with BJ Penn. In the end, a St-Pierre knee injury sidelined him entirely, and Diaz duly beat Penn in the event’s main event to regain his title shot.
It turned out that GSP’s knee injury was more severe than was once thought, though, and so the UFC matched Diaz against Condit to crown an interim champion in early 2012.
Condit beat Diaz by unanimous decision in the fight – the main event of UFC 143 – and worse for the former StrikeForce champ, he tested positive for marijuana after the fight and was suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
By the time St-Pierre returned to beat Condit in November 2012, Diaz had been on the shelf for 10 months without a peep, and suddenly Johny Hendricks was the hot new contender, as he’d been knocking everyone he faced out cold. As 2013 dawned, St-Pierre vs. Hendricks felt like the match to make at 170lbs.
That made it all the more surprising when the UFC announced St-Pierre vs. Diaz as the main event for March 2013’s UFC 158. It wasn’t that people didn’t want to see Diaz challenge GSP, it was more that after coming off a year on the shelf having lost his last fight, he simply didn’t deserve a title shot over Hendricks.
As it was, things found a way of working themselves out. St-Pierre comfortably defeated Diaz in one of the biggest drawing pay-per-views in UFC history, while Hendricks beat Condit on the undercard of the show, helping his star to grow and setting up his own date with GSP later in 2013.
