"UFC 137: St-Pierre vs. Diaz" officially reserved for Oct. 29 in Las Vegas
MMAjunkie.com Staff on Jun 14, 2011 at 10:05 am ET
As expected the UFC returns to Sin City on Oct. 29 for UFC 137.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission recently approved the date for a show at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
As UFC president Dana White
recently announced, the pay-per-view headliner pits UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre (22-2 MMA, 16-2 UFC) against Strikeforce titleholder Nick Diaz (25-7 MMA, 6-4 UFC).
Only St-Pierre's title will be on the line. Diaz, in fact, will vacate his Strikeforce belt as part of a move to the UFC (though he'll have the option to return to his former home, which the UFC recently acquired, if he doesn't win the UFC title).
UFC 137 will be the 21st UFC event to take place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, an 11,000-seat venue located on the Las Vegas Strip. It'll be the second event at the venue in 2011; UFC 126 also took place at the arena back in February.
The event essentially takes a spot initially reserved for an overseas event. The UFC planned to return to England on Oct. 15 (either in Liverpool or Nottingham), but due to various conflicts, officials opted for the Las Vegas show instead.
St-Pierre carries an impressive nine-fight win streak into UFC 137 and has dropped just one fight, an April 2007 championship upset to Matt Serra, in his past 16 outings. He's cleaned out most of the welterweight division and had been targeted for a potential superfight with middleweight champ Anderson Silva before officials turned their focus to Diaz.
Meanwhile, Diaz fights for the first time in the octagon since his 2006 release from the promotion. Diaz has posted an 11-1 record, which includes a current 10-fight win streak, since then. Like St-Pierre, Diaz had few, if any, remaining challenges in Strikeforce outside of prospect Tyron Woodley.