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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC's got a pretty good idea of how their title fights are going to fit in this fall, with Jon Jones defending his Light Heavyweight belt against Alexander Gustafsson in September and Cain Velasquez-JDS III likely coming in October. That's extending to November as well, as Dana White said on Thursday that the Welterweight Championship fight between Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks is likely to take place in Las Vegas that month (via Fuel TV's Ariel Helwani on Twitter).
Dana: GSP-Hendricks will be in November, probably in Vegas.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 13, 2013
That pushes the fight back slightly from what White had said earlier this week, as the fight was being targeted for an October date, but with Jon Jones pushing back from August to September for a return, they shook things up a little bit.
St-Pierre, the long-reigning Champion in the 170 lb. field, returned to action in November of last year after a significant layoff due to knee injuries. He defeated Carlos Condit upon his return, then Nick Diaz in March in a quick turnaround. This will make it three fights within a calendar year, something St-Pierre hasn't done since defeating Matt Serra, Jon Fitch, and B.J. Penn in a nine month stretch between April of 2008 and January of 2009.
Hendricks likely isn't happy the fight is pushing back a little further, but he's still the one being targeted for the fight. He's won six straight fights dating back to 2010, where he suffered his first and only loss by decision to Rick Story. In his most recent run, he's knocked out Jon Fitch in 12 seconds, Martin Kampmann in 46 seconds, and beaten former Interim Welterweight Champ Carlos Condit.
Penick's Analysis: There's still an outside chance, with Jon Jones fighting in September, that the UFC could throw a ton of money at St-Pierre to fight Anderson Silva in October on the same bill as Cain-JDS III and put that at Reliant Stadium in Houston; that said, Hendricks should feel safe that November is likely for him and St-Pierre. Of course, he's not going to feel entirely confident in the fight happening until St-Pierre's standing across the cage from him, but November's a reasonable spot for it. Also, given that the UFC's been wanting to get St-Pierre back to Vegas for the first time since UFC 100 in 2009, the timing on this would make sense there as well.
[GSP art by Travis Beaven (c) MMATorch.com]
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Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_17251.shtml
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