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George St Pierre. Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press/Press Association Images
UFC

Uncaged: GSP and Diaz coming up to the boil nicely with war of words

One most anticipated fights of the year is just one week away.

AFTER A HECTIC couple of weeks for the UFC, a little bit of inactivity inside the Octagon allows for all the boring behind-the-scenes business and loose ends to be tied up.

As the fans reflect and take stock on all the consequences from the last couple of events, a large number of future fights have been announced, whetting the appetite and keeping the interest high for the foreseeable future.

It’s not as if we have to wait long for the next event anyway as next Saturday sees one of the most eagerly anticipated fights of the year as Georges Saint Pierre and Nick Diaz do battle in a fight that will see the culmination of a feud that is years in the making.

Controversial conference call

One of the unique features to the build-up to a UFC fight is the conference call where Dana White and all the fighters involved converge on a single telephone line and answer questions from the media who are also hooked into the conversation.

Recordings of these calls are usually streamed live on the internet and from time to time produce some epic talking points, and this week’s call probably topped the lot of them.

The notoriously press-shy and hard to pin down Nick Diaz eventually, after some uncertainty, took to the phone and the sound bites that followed have already become the newest editions in the book of UFC folklore.

Diaz’s tirades verged from begrudged respect to ridicule as he tore into St Pierre at length on numerous occasions while “Rush” managed to give as good as he got calling Diaz an “uneducated fool” at one point.

The animosity between the two was completely evident as those on the call sat in hushed silence revelling in the verbal sparring that was taking place. The hype around the fight has now reached fever pitch with fans wondering how the two will react when they come face-to-face next week at the press conferences and weigh-ins.

You can listen to the whole call below but spare a thought for the likes of Carlos Condit, Jonny Hendricks and Jake Ellenberger who were on the line and hardly got a word in edgeways.

(Warning: contains strong language)

YouTube credit: Boxing Pulse

Some new match-ups announced

The most significant fight announcement of the week involves the middleweight champion Anderson Silva and unbeaten prospect Chris Weidman which has been pencilled in for UFC 162 this July. Weidman had been angling for this fight since he beat

Mark Munoz but Silva didn’t seem as keen as he believed Weidman hadn’t beaten enough top contenders.

The doubts emanating from Silva’s camp have obviously been smoothed over and the prospect of one of the new breed of middleweights trying to dethrone “The Spider” makes this a very interesting matchup. On that same card it was announced that Mark Munoz will take on Tim Boetsch and Tim Kennedy will take on Roger Gracie.

YouTube credit: XD18Felipe

Elsewhere, it was announced that Alistair Overeem will be the next man to take on Junior dos Santos despite a late claim from Mark Hunt to take on the Brazilian heavyweight. Dana White claimed that Hunt turned down the chance to fight JDS despite an online campaign from the New Zealander which suggested otherwise.

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