‘I Thought I Had Cancer’

We knew Georges St-Pierre had a wonky stomach.

What we didn’t know, is the extent of the suffering endured by “Rush” during the weeks ahead of his middleweight title fight opposite Michael Bisping at UFC 217. In fact, his vomiting became so severe, the promotion nearly canceled the contest.

St-Pierre (26-2) went on to defeat Bisping by third-round submission, marking the final fight for a competitor many fans (and pundits) consider to be the greatest of all time.

“The reason why I really retired is because it took a lot out of me and I started developing a condition called ileocolitis,” St-Pierre told Pound 4 Pound (transcribed by MMA News). “It’s an inflammation of the intestine and my last fight, when I fought Bisping, I tried to eat to gain weight and I have a very hard time gaining weight and I force myself to eat and maybe the doctor told me that’s probably why I developed that. When I get diagnosed with ileocolitis, in terms of stress, I got relieved but also I started doing intermittent fasting and it cured all my symptoms.”

It sure beats watermelon juice.

“I’m no longer on medication, I used to be on severe medication,” St-Pierre continued. “I used to go to the bathroom and it was a lot of blood, I thought maybe I had cancer but I was telling myself during training camp I was like, whatever it is, I’m going to wait until the end of the fight because to find out what it is, you need to what they call a colonoscopy. It’s a camera they put up and for that, they put you on laxatives and I was trying to gain weight, not lose weight.”

St-Pierre, who turns 43 in just a few weeks, will not be making a return to combat sports, despite previous rumors about potential fights against Khabib Nurmagomedov and Oscar De La Hoya. That’s because fighting requires cutting weight, which in turn rules out all those lazy afternoons at the ice cream parlor.