UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre

By Joshua Molina

A week after Georges St-Pierre ate him for dinner, self-tortured bad boy Nick Diaz says he could beat GSP in a rematch.

Maybe, maybe not.

But that’s besides the point. Opportunities to fight for the UFC championship come once in a lifetime for most people. Diaz has been around long enough to know that it doesn’t matter what you can do the second time because second chances rarely come.

It matters what you do the first time opportunity knocks. Diaz can dream all he wants about what he would do in a rematch.

The bottom line is when he had his chance, he choked. He ought to fight Carlos Condit again. If he can beat Condit in a rematch, maybe he can think about saying the Georges St-Pierre’s name again.

GSP, by the way, says he had an achilles injury and a fever the night of the fight.

So what does that say for Diaz? GSP certainly looked tired and a bit flat at times against Diaz. GSP didn’t look as good as everybody knows he can look. So if Diaz get’s another chance, it’s probably only going to get worse for him.

If anybody from the Gracie camp deserves a rematch it’s Jake Shields, who came one round away from upsetting GSP in 2011. On some scorecards Shields won two rounds. GSP was so concerned about Shields beating him that he fought the fight entirely in the standup – rather than take Shields to the mat – to avoid Shield’s elite level American Jiu-Jitsu.

Shields’ career has tanked since that night – getting KO’d by Jake Ellenberger, shortly after his father suddenly died. Shields beat Yoshihiro Akiyama and then Ed Herman, but saw the latter fight overturned because of a drug test violation.

Shields may be one of the most boring top-level fighters in the UFC, but he’s a hard worker and doesn’t have problem mentally focusing like Diaz.

GSP probably won’t give Diaz or Shields a rematch if he gets past Johny Hendricks. Based on his weakish performances against Condit and Diaz, GSP might want to think about cashing in on the Anderson Silva dream match early next year.

At least if he loses that fight it would be against one of the best in the world in a larger weight division. If GSP keeps fighting safe – and fighting to win, not win impressively, a Silva vs. GSP match will never happen because GSP will lose long before the UFC can sell a ticket to the dream fight.