Georges St-Pierre won’t be surprised if he’s surpassed as the greatest welterweight of all time in the future. In fact, he expects it.
St-Pierre (26-2 MMA, 20-2 UFC), the consensus welterweight GOAT who’s widely considered the greatest fighter period, possesses one of the most incredible resumes in the history of MMA.
A two-time UFC welterweight champion, St-Pierre avenged the only two losses on his record and even returned after a four-year layoff to capture the middleweight title from Michael Bisping in 2017. But with current UFC 170-pound champ Kamaru Usman’s dominance, people have already started discussing him as someone to potentially dethrone St-Pierre as the welterweight GOAT.
St-Pierre notched nine consecutive title defenses in his second reign as champion, while Usman (18-1 MMA, 13-0 UFC) currently sits at just three. But while St-Pierre acknowledges that his resume is better than Usman’s, he lauded the champ for pushing the envelope with his performances, which include stoppage wins over Colby Covington and Gilbert Burns, and a unanimous decision against Jorge Masvidal.
St-Pierre thinks the fighters of today have a lot more resources at their disposal, which has helped them form into much more well rounded athletes.
“In terms of accomplishments, it’s different,” St-Pierre told ESPN. “I’ve done stuff that I believe he hasn’t done yet. But I’m gonna tell you the truth and as painful as it could be for any athlete to admit it, the athletes of today are normally better than the athletes of yesterday. As good as the athletes of today are, the athletes of tomorrow will be better. That’s how it is. I don’t care who you are. Even if you’re Usain Bolt, you beat the world record, in a few years there will be another guy that comes and beats your record. I don’t think it’s because the guys are better, it’s because the technology is better and it’s the same thing in mixed martial arts.
“We cannot measure the performance like in sprinting or in weight lifting, but we can only speculate and, of course, time for time, maybe he didn’t win 11 (title fights), but he’s raising the bar. And if I don’t admit that, that means I’m insulting the entire UFC roster. That means I’m saying the sport is regressing, and it’s not true. I believe the sport is getting better. Do I feel that if I go back in my prime and I could fight Kamaru Usman, I do think, yes, I could have done it. However, I know for a fact that as time goes by, guys get better.”
St-Pierre also explained that people have a tendency to get carried away with who’s currently hot and promote them as the best, while forgetting the greats that have paved the way before. That being said, he has fully accepted the comparisons in what he says is an inevitable part of the sport.
“Mixed martial arts is a sport about what’s next, and it’s always been like that,” St-Pierre said. “The champion that will come after Kamaru Usman, we will promote him as the ‘best guy ever’ who’s better than Georges St-Pierre, who’s better than Kamaru Usman, but it’s the same thing.
“Now we have Kamaru Usman, we have Israel Adesanya – we don’t talk about Anderson Silva anymore. We talk about Israel Adesanya, and that’s OK. That’s how the sport is, and we have to accept it. I know how it is, and we like to be remembered for the stuff that we’ve done, we put a lot of effort into it, but that’s the reality, and I accept it. I make peace with it. It was hard in the beginning, but I make peace with it.”
Georges St-Pierre says Kamaru Usman ‘raising the bar,’ expounds on welterweight GOAT talk
