Champions defending titles are rare these days…
Just days after defeating Michael Bisping for the UFC middleweight championship, Georges St. Pierre is already talking about vacating his newly won title.
GSP sat down with Ariel Helwani today to talk about the fight and what might be next for him. While he wouldn’t reveal many details, GSP continued to allude to the idea that Saturday was his first and last fight at middleweight.
GSP made similar comments during his post-fight interview on Saturday with Joe Rogan.
“Well, this is not really my weight,” St-Pierre said. “I did it for the challenge. There was a time in my career, I was too busy. The challengers were one after the other and I was too small to go up. Now I’m still welterweight size, but I decided to take a shot, because I put on some muscle mass. There’s a point that it’s too much, but now I’m at the point where it’s OK.”
Will GSP Go Back To Welterweight?
News that GSP is not planning on staying at middleweight will come as a bit of a shock to Tyron Woodley, who just recently announced plans to go up in weight to challenge him. Perhaps now Woodley is reconsidering his earlier statements and is more than happy to let GSP come down to fight him.
Woodley has been calling out GSP as far back as the post-fight presser from UFC 201. The current champion versus arguably the all-time greatest champ the division has ever seen. It would also earn Woodley a cheque the size of which he has never seen.
Neck Injury at UFC 217
GSP also revealed in his interview today that he suffered a neck injury during his bout with Bisping.
“My neck was so inflamed, when I was on the floor, I had a hard time posturing up because it was hurting very bad. It felt like I couldn’t contract my head to posture up. After the fight when I cooled down, it was terrible. It was like my neck couldn’t move. Now it’s still sore, but it got a lot better. I got treatment on it, so I’ll be back 100 percent.”
Will GSP Vacate the Middleweight Championship?
Before UFC 217, GSP signed an agreement with the UFC that he would defend the middleweight championship if he won it. Now it seems, he might be looking for a way out of that commitment.
“We’ll see what I want to do and where my head is,” he said. “I have no intention of holding onto the belt and freezing the division. That’s not what I want to do. Robert Whittaker is in my contract. If I want to fight again, it has to be against Robert Whittaker at 185 (pounds). That’s in my contract. I cannot, for example, go fight (welterweight champ) Tyron Woodley or go fight another guy.”
“I am going on vacation next week and going to talk about it with the UFC to see what’s next. My contract says I am fighting Robert Whittaker, but a lot of things can happen in MMA, things change all the time.”