Georges St-Pierre is still unsure about a return to MMA.
The former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion doubts he’ll make another UFC comeback at this stage in his life. Yet, despite not liking his odds, the talk of a potential blockbuster fight between St-Pierre (26-2 MMA, 20-2 UFC) and current unbeaten UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov keeps getting bigger.
Recently, those talks intensified when Nurmagomedov (28-0 MMA, 12-0 UFC) said he’d like to fight St-Pierre in April if successful in his title unification bout with interim champ Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 on Oct. 24.
Nurmagomedov’s head coach, Javier Mendez, recently upped the stakes when speaking on MMA Junkie’s Spanish-language podcast Hablemos MMA, saying the potential superfight would define the greatest of all time.
St-Pierre, at 39, feels his chances to return are very slim. Moreover, he doubts UFC would want to give him a title shot at 155-pounds anyway.
“It takes three people to make a fight: One opponent, another opponent, and it takes the organization, and I don’t know if the organization would want that,” St-Pierre told BT Sport. “I ran away with the welterweight (title), I ran away with the middleweight (title) and they surely don’t want me to run with the lightweight belt. And I don’t think I can, I’m 39 years old, I don’t think I could go to 155 (pounds) without my performance being compromised.”
St-Pierre turns 40 in May. The MMA star hasn’t competed since UFC 217 in November 2017 when he defeated Michael Bisping to claim 185-pound belt, joining the shortlist of fighters to win UFC gold in two divisions.
The incredible feat came after a four-year lay-off, as he’d gone on a hiatus after successfully defending the welterweight belt against Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 in November 2013.
St-Pierre said he considers Nurmagomedov to be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport currently. If “Rush” were to get the fight, especially at lightweight, he said he thinks he would be physically outsized.
“Khabib is fighting at 155 and he’s heavier than me,” St-Pierre said. “He’s younger than me, so he can fluctuate his weight better and I’ve never been a fan of cutting weight. I pretty much have just stayed like, I lose weight but I don’t lose too much weight compared to the rest of the guys. I always thought about the long term and I’m afraid of the long-term consequences.
“Physically, I’m always very fit so I don’t have a lot of water retention or fat when I’m at my natural walking around weight. It’s different for everybody but I think Khabib walks around at a heavier weight than me. He’s like over 185 when he’s off season, he’s close to 200 and I’ve never been 200 pounds in my life.”
Time will tell if St-Pierre ever returns to fighting. Nurmagomedov has hinted that he would retire when his record hits 30-0, and he would like St-Pierre to be his swan song from the sport.
UFC president Dana White doesn’t rule out the possibility, and has said on-record he would give Nurmagomedov “whatever he wants” in a potential retirement bout. Despite that, St-Pierre said he doesn’t like the odds of it coming together.
“The chance is incredibly low,” St-Pierre said. “I’m always training hard but now it’s COVID, so of course I can’t train because it’s illegal to train combat sports here. But before COVID, I’m always training hard, I always get it, and I feel I’m at my best. But the fighter is always the last one to find out when your time is up, so I don’t know.”
Georges St-Pierre pegs odds of Khabib Nurmagomedov superfight at ‘incredibly low’