• UFC 137

Koscheck offered to step in for St-Pierre

Josh Koscheck beat Matt Hughes at UFC 135 © Getty Images

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Josh Koscheck, twice beaten by Georges St-Pierre, offered to step in for the welterweight champion to take on Carlos Condit at UFC 137.

The Las Vegas card lost its main event on Tuesday as a knee injury sidelined St-Pierre, leaving Condit without an opponent. The UFC has since pulled Condit and promoted BJ Penn v Nick Diaz to the top of the card.

An alternative option was offered by Koscheck, who is coming off a September win over Matt Hughes. The American Kickboxing Academy man was a late replacement for Diego Sanchez on that occasion, and he would have had no problems repeating the feat against Condit.

"Hey [Dana White,] Duty calls again?" Koscheck tweeted in reaction to news that St-Pierre had withdrawn.

Koscheck's offer did not appeal to either the UFC nor Condit though, despite Condit confessing he immediately expected a replacement opponent to be offered. In the Natural Born Killer's eyes, he simply would not be able to re-adjust for a different fight having been set to battle for a UFC title.

"When I heard Georges pulled out, I was like, 'Are they going to put a last-minute opponent in?' That thought came pretty quick," Condit told ESPN.

"I want to fight next week. It's in my heart to fight, but logically, I need to be patient. No matter who the opponent was - right now, a fight against anyone other than Georges wouldn't make sense."

Condit also revealed there may be a silver lining to the news, because a two-month delay will allow him to heal some nagging injuries. "I have some small - I wouldn't even call them injuries - that come from training day in and day out, so I guess I have time to heal now. But I would rather have just fought through it.

"I was ready to fight. The layoff isn't huge, but, you know, it's kind of a crappy situation all around."

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