On September 7, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was set to hold their pre-fight press conference in their home of Las Vegas, NV for UFC 137: St. Pierre vs Diaz to promote the scheduled super fight between reigning UFC Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and reigning Strikeforce Welterweight champion Nick Diaz. UFC President Dana White opened the conference speaking about the absence of Diaz from the pre-fight press conference the day before in Toronto and announced that he was again absent to that day's conference. For his failure to attend, and what seems like blatant refusal to attend, White showed the promotional trailer for the UFC 137 main event that showed Diaz was now replaced in the bout with former and final WEC Welterweight champion Carlos Condit who was already training to fight in the co-main event for that same night against former Lightweight/Welterweight champion B.J. Penn. With both White and St. Pierre in attendance for the conference, both relayed their disappointment in Diaz's failure to appear after the UFC had paid for multiple flights to get him to both conferences. White also went as far as to say he could consider firing Diaz completely, though would not confirm if he would do so for sure. An interesting moment occurred during the conference when Diaz's manager and trainer Cesar Gracie actually called Dana White during the conference and said that he agreed with his decision to remove Diaz from the fight and was trying to find him. Relaying the news of Condit stepping in to face St. Pierre, White spoke of the call to offer Condit the shot and how much it meant for him to finally get a shot at the title many fans had felt he already deserved. St. Pierre while disappointed with the absence and lost time away from training for a fight that will not happen, spoke of the interest of fighting a new opponent in Condit who he feels is a more dangerous fighter than Diaz. With both St. Pierre and Condit already training to fight on the same night, this new main event will remain on schedule to headline UFC 137 on October 29 in Las Vegas, NV.
While the news was accepted and supported, the fact that Penn was now without an opponent did not go unnoticed with White immediately asked about what this meant for the former champion. With no other Welterweights scheduled to fight on the same card, the UFC was put in a position to decide whether to pull Penn from the card and reschedule another fight for a different event, or find another opponent to fight on several weeks notice. On September 8 the next day, White tweeted "This is crazy but here we go again! You wanted it so you got it. Penn vs Diaz Oct 29th in Vegas". While opinions of fans and analysts were mixed saying to cut him, make Diaz vs Fitch, Diaz vs Penn, and other thoughts, nobody really expected this to happen. With this announcement, UFC 137 is set to be one of the most stacked PPV cards of the year. The main event will be promoted as champion vs champion with the longest reigning UFC Welterweight champion St. Pierre taking on the final WEC Welterweight champion Condit who is one of the best fighters to come out of the promotion, the former UFC Lightweight/Welterweight champion Penn taking on a former/first WEC Welterweight champion (yeah Diaz was the first coincidentally) and reigning Strikeforce Welterweight champion Diaz, a towering French kckboxer in Cheick Kongo taking on a fast rising prospect and potential contender in Matt Mitrione, one of the most recognized kickboxers in MMA in Mirko Cro-Cop fighting one last time taking on the former IFL Heavyweight champ and TUF10 winner Roy Nelson, and the promotional debut of elite Japanese Featherweight Hatsu Hioki against dangerous striker George Roop. Add the SpikeTV preliminary card with German kickboxer Denis Siver taking on rising former WEC contender Donald Cerrone, and a veteran Tyson Griffin taking on another veteran in Bart Palaszewski, and you have a completely stacked event; and that's not even including the preliminary bouts being shown free streaming on Facebook. With such a stacked event, does this lineup make up for all the drama over these past few days? And will the event live up to the hype with some already calling this card of the year?
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