Mixed martial arts legend Georges St-Pierre explained why a proposed superfight in the UFC against fellow MMA legend Anderson Silva got away.
St-Pierre is the greatest welterweight of all time, and Silva is the greatest middleweight. In 2012, the two were on a collision course to fight. At UFC 154, Silva was in attendance when St-Pierre defeated Carlos Condit, setting up the superfight that MMA fans all around the world wanted badly to see. But for whatever reason, the St-Pierre vs. Silva superfight never happened.
But why?
Georges St-Pierre Explains Why the Anderson Silva Fight Got Away
Speaking to fellow UFC Hall of Famer Demetrious Johnson on “Mighty,” St-Pierre gave his side of the story on why the superfight against Silva never materialized.
According to the French Canadian, he gave the UFC a list of three requests to make the Silva fight happen. One, that he got a new contract. Two, that it took place at a catchweight between 170 lbs and 185 lbs. And three, that there was drug testing in place for the bout.
But the UFC never got back to him about it.
“So my request was to fight Anderson Silva, I want to be put under contract. I want to be compensated better, one. I wanted this to be done in a catchweight, because Anderson fought in PRIDE at 170, and I knew he could go down — I don’t know if he could’ve gone down in that moment… it seems like he got heavier as time goes by, so I don’t know. It’s only an impression. So it would be at a catchweight, so after that I could (go back to 170 lbs). If I go up, I needed to go back down because I wouldn’t spend my career there. And the third one was I wanted to have drug testing implemented. And they never got back to me,” St-Pierre said (via MMAFighting.com).
“That was my intention: ‘If you make that happen, I’m in, no problem. If you made it 180 catchweight, I’m in. And if you compensate me, and it was reasonable… and also the drug testing. But they didn’t follow up with that. I don’t know if they asked Anderson about that, but they only asked me once.”
Ultimately, the fans are the losers here, because a superfight between St-Pierre and Silva would have been arguably the biggest MMA fight of all time. We’ll never see it, though, so we can only dream.
Will Georges St-Pierre Ever Fight Again?
St-Pierre has not competed in nearly a decade since he defeated Michael Bisping in 2017 to win the UFC middleweight title. He retired after that bout and has never stepped back into the Octagon again, although he continues to train and stay in shape at Tristar Gym in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The UFC welterweight GOAT recently said that the door is not completely closed to fighting again, and he admitted that he gets calls all the time from other promotions to fight, now that he’s not under a UFC contract any longer. But at age 45 and being out of the game for so long, it feels like the ship has sailed on GSP ever stepping back into the cage again, even if he hasn’t completely shut the steel door on the idea.
Georges St-Pierre Explains Why Anderson Silva Fight Got Away