UFC: Georges St-Pierre needs to back away from Khabib fight – it would be an embarrassing massacre

From one Canadian to another, Georges, buddy, don’t do this, s'il vous plaît.

Reports are swirling that legendary UFC fighter and French-Canadian Georges St-Pierre still wants to take on lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov after the Russian defends his belt against Tony Ferguson, a fight that is still being hammered out and remains a serious question mark.

In an interview with ESPN, St-Pierre said he floated the bout to UFC boss Dana White about a year ago but he wasn’t interested, and now that they are, the terms have changed.

Unless the UFC’s equilibrium shifts off its axis for a night, Khabib should dispatch Ferguson, if that fight comes to fruition, and will then probably survey the crowd for St-Pierre, who will be dressed impeccably in a grey custom-tailored suit and offering his typical francophone smile.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Ferguson is more than a formidable foe and maybe St-Pierre won’t wear a grey suit to the fight. It might be tanned or beige, but one thing is crystal clear: I do not want to see the 38-year-old Canuck enter the ring with the Russian.

The last time St-Pierre fought was in 2017 against a withering loudmouth in Michael Bisping, who knew hyping the fight was his last chance to milk the UFC money cow.

St-Pierre looked tired that night, not just physically, but mentally. Bisping’s constant nonsensical jabbering wasn’t just going in one ear and out the other, and pounding him and throwing him around like a rag doll inside the ring didn’t feel like a good enough retaliation, or any type of sufficient retribution.

St-Pierre had already come out of retirement to take that fight, and before that his previous contest was against Johny Hendricks in 2013.

St-Pierre has spent a measly nine minutes and 23 seconds in the Octagon, in total, in the span of close to six years. Khabib, 31, has spent the best part of the past six years living in the UFC fox hole demolishing some of the best fighters, including Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. No biggie.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how this would play out. Khabib would massacre St-Pierre and I can’t wrap my head around why he would keep pushing for such a fight. His legacy is cemented, he will go down as one of the greatest fighters of all time. There is no cost-benefit analysis to this. Cut and run buddy has to be the only play here. Why his camp aren’t hammering him with this message is astounding.

Hypothetically, there aren’t many scenarios that play out well for St-Pierre. On one hand, Khabib massacres him and leaves him with an embarrassing asterisk hanging over his career. On the other hand, things look just as messy.

On the razor thin chance that St-Pierre does beat Khabib, say via a sneaky tap-out or choke hold, which is incredibly unlikely given the type of fighter the Russian is, or if St-Pierre gets incredibly lucky and catches Khabib with a punch or kick for a KO, it is not a dream scenario after that.

Sure, St-Pierre will be vaulted back to the upper echelon of the sport, and once again bathe in the MMA spotlight, but it will be short-lived because White will probably be forced to give Khabib a rematch post-haste.

St-Pierre would also instantly become target No 1 for some of the most viciously primed fighters who would be licking their lips at the chance to not only beat one of the greatest pugilists of all-time, but strip him of his belt.

There’s no denying St-Pierre made his career on being fit and healthy, avoiding vices and staying away from temptation. But there’s only so many supplements you can take and sit-ups you can do to beat back Father Time.

Also, not fighting is not a good thing when your occupation is being a fighter. You get rusty, you get slow, you get sloppy and you lose your edge. Khabib has been feasting on adrenaline, fuelled by McGregor’s Twitter feed for the past two years, while St-Pierre has been off in the Quebecois hinterlands doing God only knows what.

The UFC has moved on from St-Pierre and is actually looking like it might move on from McGregor as well. St-Pierre has done a lot of astonishing things in his career, but closing a big age gap on a Russian assassin who fights like a 21-year-old with his life on the line isn’t a good fight for Ferguson, let alone some nostalgia play White wants to make to keep pay-per-view numbers up.

My French is a bit rusty, but here goes:

“Georges mon pote d’un compatriote à un autre, veuillez ne pas le faire.”