UFC: Georges St-Pierre needs ‘something from left field’ to reconsider retirement after Khabib fight fell through
- UFC legend St-Pierre says ‘it would need a complete 180 degree turnaround right now’
- Former welterweight and middleweight champion will only return for ‘something I never saw coming’
Georges St-Pierre has said he needs the UFC to offer him “something from left field” if he is going to reconsider his retirement from MMA.
The 38-year-old former welterweight and middleweight champion said he hasn’t spoken to UFC president Dana White since retiring for the second time, apart from sharing some text messages immediately afterwards.
“It would need a complete 180 degree turnaround right now,” St-Pierre told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. “Sometimes I’m training with the guys and I still get it, man. I’m not in fighting shape, you’re never in fighting shape when you’re not getting ready for a fight. It’s like a sprinter when he trains, he doesn’t do 110 seconds all year around, he does 110 seconds like certain specific times when he peaks.
“Fighters are the same, they’re in certain condition when they peak, when they know there’s a fight. It wouldn’t take me much to reach fight shape. I can still reach that. However, the fighter is always the last person to know when it’s time to stop.
“So in my mind I still think I get it and believe I can still be champion, but I just don’t know if … my trainer says yes, I just don’t know if I want to get back into it. It would need something that interests me, something from the left field I never saw coming, and I’m like, ‘Maybe, yeah, let’s do it’.”
Three-time welterweight champ St-Pierre returned to the Octagon in November 2017 after a near four-year lay-off to beat Michael Bisping and claim his second divisional title. He then looked to secure a mega-fight with lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018, but the UFC had other plans and he hung up his gloves for a second time, vacating the middleweight belt.
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“They had a plan. I know Khabib wanted to have that fight, I wanted it,” St-Pierre added. “But the UFC, if you look on their side I think it’s normal. If I put myself in their shoes, they didn’t want to take the risk of me winning the title, and then after it’s vacant again, because I didn’t want it [the fight] even for the title.
“For me, it was because I considered Khabib the best in the world. He wanted to fight me as well. It was a good fan fight. They didn’t want it. They had other plans for Khabib.
“I understand, they had a lot to lose. If they invest in that fight and their investment goes out, after it’s not a good move. In a way I could take that as a compliment, because maybe they saw me as a threat. They thought I could win. If they let me fight him, maybe it’s because they think I would lose.”
St-Pierre (26-2) is still more interested in a one-off dream fight, rather than returning to challenge for, and then defend another UFC championship.
“I would not like to fight and go back into the title defence,” he said. “I’m past this, it’s too stressful for me. I felt if I keep doing this, the stress will kill me, maybe I will die of cancer or something.
“I don’t miss the stress at all,” he added. “I miss the accomplishment of an achievement. I miss the last step you take if you try to climb a mountain, and you made it to the top. I don’t miss being called out, promoting the next fight and the trash talk back and forth, and being stressed about the outcome of the upcoming fight. I miss being with my trainer and training partners during camp, having dinner. It’s like a brotherhood.”
There has been speculation Khabib and St-Pierre could fight at a catchweight. But the UFC legend is confident he would be able to cut to the Russian’s favoured 155lbs.
“Yeah. I could make 155, I always could,” he said.
“I’m not a big 170 either. I’ve never been 200 pounds. I’m always around 185, or 183, 182 when I wake up in the morning, that’s what I walk around.”
