Georges St-Pierre has a theory on why the UFC doesn’t want him to face Khabib Nurmagomedov.
St-Pierre has long expressed his interest in taking on UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. The feeling is mutual as Nurmagomedov has said he’d like to fight St-Pierre at 155 pounds. “Rush” retired earlier this year once the UFC wouldn’t book the fight.
GSP Theorizes Not Getting Khabib Fight
St-Pierre spoke to Robin Black on DAZN and discussed not receiving the bout that he wanted (via MMAFighting.com).
“I am retired,” St-Pierre said. “I retired because I didn’t want to go back and do the same thing over and over again. Taking a fight takes a lot out of me because I’m very proud so when I perform I have to do it the best I can and the result matters very much for me. So it takes a lot of stress on me. I didn’t want to take another training camp of two-three months – maybe six months with the whole building up with the promotion and everything – out of my life to fight another guy that I don’t have nothing to gain in terms of legacy. If I fight someone and I take six months of my life to focus on it . . . I would need that to be worth it to me. Not only money-wise but legacy wise and satisfaction wise. That’s why I wanted to fight Khabib because I could have lost big but at least I could have win big.
“If I ever come back, it’s not impossible but right now I don’t see nothing. The UFC refuse a fight with Khabib and I and there’s nothing that really excites me.”
St-Pierre went on to theorize why the UFC was against the idea of him fighting Nurmagomedov.
“It makes sense in a way,” GSP said. “My agent explained it to me like, maybe he represents a significant investment for UFC. He reaches a different type of clientele, from the Middle East, the Muslim world idolizing him. He’s an icon. Imagine that they invest a lot of money to promote a big fight between Khabib and I and I win the fight. [Wipes hands and smiles]. I’m out. I’m not interested in signing a fight with Khabib and guarantee them that I want to go back and fight another contender.”
UFC president Dana White told TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter back in July that he didn’t trust St-Pierre would defend the lightweight gold if he defeated Nurmagomedov.
“Well there’s two things. First of all, who doesn’t love Georges St-Pierre? Love Georges St-Pierre, the best ever as far as human being. Great guy, love him. Georges St-Pierre and I had a deal. He was gonna fight Bisping at 185 pounds and if he won he would defend the title. He bailed on it, didn’t do it. So you can’t just come out and handpick fights that you want for titles.
“He made this deal with me that he would defend the title. He went in and he saw Bisping as an easy fight. He fought Bisping and then you look at the guys that are behind Bisping and they’re all killers. They’re all literally killers. But now to come back and he wants to fight at 155 for the title. We’re not doing a goofy 165 whatever, that’s not gonna happen. Then I guess if I get into a position where Khabib the champ wants it bad enough, we’re gonna have to talk about it. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t make sense to me.”
