Is Carlos Condit good enough to beat GSP?
What Condit showed against Diaz is how mentally tough he is. Condit survived 25 minutes against one of the best…
What Condit showed against Diaz is how mentally tough he is. Condit survived 25 minutes against one of the best welterweights in the world and never wilted. Condit didn’t change his game plan in the second round when Diaz started to get the better of the striking exchanges and began openly taunting Condit, as Diaz so often has to his opponents. And Condit didn’t panic and didn’t give in during the final minute of the fight, when Diaz took him down and took his back. A lot of men — even a lot of great fighters — would have been ready to break by that point. Condit couldn’t be broken.
So is Condit good enough to beat GSP? As a striker, I believe he’s already better than GSP. And he has a more diverse array of submissions than GSP as well. The big question is whether Condit’s wrestling and takedown defense will prove to be good enough that he can stay off his back against St. Pierre. That’s a tall order, but I like Condit’s chances.
St. Pierre is also, of course, coming off a serious knee injury — the kind of injury that some athletes never fully recover from. And St. Pierre will be battling ring rust when he fights Condit: By the time he’s ready to step into the Octagon in November, he’ll have been off for a year and a half. St. Pierre is also three years older than Condit. Those are all factors that favor Condit.