Albuquerque’s Carlos Condit is the UFC interim welterweight champion, having defeated a typically tough, typically classless Nick Diaz Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Condit, showing the class that Diaz so sorely lacks, credited Diaz for a strong performance and also paid due respect to his coaches — headed by Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn — for the fight plan they formulated.

Still, it was Condit who took that plan and made it work.

Looking ahead, Condit faces the prospect of a showdown — probably late this year — with UFC champion and sometime Jacks0n-Winkeljohn teammate Georges St-Pierre. When the two were scheduled to meet before — a fight scrubbed by a previous injury to GSP — Jackson, who works with both fighters, said he would sit this one out.