UFC president Dana White tweeted the news Wednesday that MMA fans have been waiting to hear:
A fight between the UFC welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre, and the Strikeforce welterweight champion, Nick Diaz, is on for late October. This is the first fight between Strikeforce and UFC fighters since Zuffa, the parent company for the UFC, bought Strikeforce in March. Until now, the UFC had maintained that the two promotions would remain separate.
It is also the bout that makes the most sense for both fighters. Diaz and GSP have both cleaned out their divisions. Neither fighter has lost since 2007. Diaz has been asking for this fight for more than a year, pointing out in an interview with Cagewriter that GSP did not have many challenges left within the UFC:
GSP's fought everybody else. He's already fought Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck. He doesn't want to fight those guys again. He should want to fight me. I think he should stand up and say, whether this fight is going to happen or not, I'm not afraid to fight.
Diaz turned out to be correct, as GSP beat both Koscheck and Diaz's training partner, Jake Shields. Diaz has faced a similar dearth of challenges. He beat Paul Daley with a TKO in the first round in April, and Evangelista Santos with an armbar in January.
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