UFC Hall of Famer Georges St-Pierre opens up on why a superfight with Anderson Silva didn't materialize
Georges St-Pierre recently opened up on why a superfight with Anderson Silva never materialized during their prime, especially when it was clear that fans wanted to see them fight.
During his appearance on FULL SEND PODCAST, St-Pierre explained that he had requests that he wanted to be met in order to fight Silva. He mentioned that he wanted the bout to be contested at a catchweight and additional drug testing as part of the agreement.
He said:
"I say, 'I'll fight him in a catchweight. He go down a little bit and I go up a little bit.'...It's a give and take, it's equal, it's fair compromise. And also, I want test for drug, I want drug test...It was before USADA and UFC didn't want that...So I said, 'no problem, I'll do it but catchweight and drug tests.'" [1:06:50 - 1:07:41]
'Rush' also brought up that if he'd agreed to fight the then middleweight champion, it wouldn't have been under his existing contract but a more lucrative deal for such a significant bout. He mentioned that he blames the promotion for that fight falling through because they didn't want to meet his conditions, saying:
"My agent said, 'It's not good because it's something different. They want you do something that is out of your field, so if it's out, you need to be compensated, you're taking more risk, you need to be compensated for.' So the UFC never wanted to do it, so this fight, I think I will blame the UFC for that." [1:07:50 - 1:08:10]
St-Pierre vs. Silva was a missed opportunity for the UFC as both were considered by many as the best in the world and were dominant champions at the time.
Check out the full interview:
Georges St-Pierre thought Khabib Nurmagomedov was going to call him out
Georges St-Pierre has been open in numerous interviews that a fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov would have enticed him to return to the octagon.
During the aforementioned podcast appearance, 'GSP' recalled being on commentary for French-Canadian outlet RDS when Nurmagomedov defended his title against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254. He mentioned that he was told that the lightweight champion would call him out and he was prepared to accept a fight, saying:
"I was doing the commentating and everybody told me, even in his entourage told me, 'be ready cause he's gonna call you out.' So I thought okay, I'm coming out of retirement...And then he took his mic and he retired and nobody saw that coming." [1:09:17 - 1:09:40]
Breaking: After defeating Justin Gaethje at #UFC254, Khabib Nurmagomedov announced his retirement saying, "there's no way I'm going to be back without my father." https://t.co/b6PIPYDTsV