A serious injury has forced Georges St-Pierre (22-2 MMA, 16-2 UFC) out of UFC 143's main event and will sideline him for 10 months.
With the titleholder shelved due to an ACL injury, officials have booked his original opponent, Nick Diaz (26-7 MMA, 7-4 UFC), to meet Carlos Condit (27-5 MMA, 4-1 UFC) for an interim belt in the event's new headliner.
UFC president Dana White today tweeted the news.
"GSP blown acl will be out for 10 mos.," White tweeted. "Now Condit vs Diaz for the interim welterweight title on Feb 4th in Las Vegas!!"
It's not clear if Condit's original opponent at UFC 143, Josh Koscheck (16-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC), will remain on the card.
UFC 143 takes place Feb. 4 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The event's main card airs live on pay-per-view.
Condit, of course, initially was slated to fight St-Pierre. However, after Diaz topped B.J. Penn in October at UFC 137, he called out the champ, and St-Pierre campaigned for the fight with him instead. As luck would have it, Condit gets a title shot anyway.
St-Pierre was slated to fight Diaz, the former Strikeforce titleholder, in a champion-vs.-champion fight at UFC 137. However, Diaz no-showed a pair of pre-event press conferences and was pulled from the title fight, and Condit got his spot instead. St-Pierre then was forced off the card with a knee injury, Condit was put on the shelf, and Diaz defeated Penn in the new headliner before calling out St-Pierre an infamous post-fight interview.
With his dominant unanimous-decision victory over Penn, Diaz now has won 11 straights, and he's 15-1 since 2006. He now meets Condit, a former WEC champion who's 12-1 in his 13 fights. The lone loss came via close split decision to Martin Kampmann in his 2009 octagon debut.
Source: Champ St-Pierre injured, Diaz vs. Condit for interim title at UFC 143