Georges St. Pierre Has Responded to Khabib Nurmagamedov’s Latest Callout… ‘The Eagle’ Demanded A Fight With GSP at Lightweight…
Georges St. Pierre has the slippers on and is comfortably retired. At least according to the Canadian legend that is. Of course, that’s not quite true. He’s still keeping in shape because that’s his style as a dedicated martial artist and professional athlete.
He’s been linked to a return multiple times against Khabib Nurmagamedov, with the Russian and their camp calling him out and issuing demands for a contest with one of the sport’s all-time greats. St. Pierre has responded to this in a recent interview with DAZN’s Robin Black.
Basically, don’t get too excited just yet. It will take a lot of factors combining for him to get back into it again and it’s not looking likely
Not Interested
The Canadian insists that he’s happily retired. It’s a massive commitment to train for a fight and right now he hasn’t got the desire or reason to go out there and do it. His legacy is already magnificent. St Pierre said:
“I am retired. 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.”
Legacy Fight
The only man who would tempt him is Khabib Nurmagamedov. Khabib is set to fight Dustin Poirier for the lightweight at UFC 247 in Abu Dhabi this weekend. It’s a massive fight. Taking on ‘The Eagle’ would add to GSP’s legacy but the UFC isn’t interested. He said:
“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.”
Not Happening
From a business perspective, St. Pierre understands why they don’t want him to fight Khabib. The Russian is massively popular in the Muslim world. The UFC doesn’t want to lose that star investment. Also, it’s worth noting that there still hasn’t technically been an official middleweight title defence since Robert Whittaker was promoted to undisputed champion. This came after ‘Rush’ vacated the title. He left a mess in that division. The Canadian said:
“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. It makes sense in a way. 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. 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.”
