Georges St-Pierre said on Monday that his contract with the UFC has been terminated and that he is a “free-agent.” St-Pierre has not fought since December of 2013 when he got a split decision win over Johny Hendricks at UFC 167. It was thought that St-Pierre would retire for good after that fight but he announced earlier this year he intends to fight again. What organization he fights with and who his next opponent will be are unclear.
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UFC vs. St-Pierre
St-Pierre said that he told former UFC chairman Lorenzo Fertitta of his intentions to fight again last February. Whether or not St-Pierre will fight in the UFC is the question as the UFC is saying that St-Pierre is still under contract with them.
"Georges St-Pierre remains under an existing agreement with Zuffa, LLC as his MMA promoter," a statement from the UFC said, "Zuffa intends to honour its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same."
St-Pierre said his team had been negotiating with the UFC with some return dates mentioned that included UFC 200, UFC 205 and UFC 206. Part of the problem with negotiations was the sale of Zuffa LLC to WME-IMG in July. Supposedly the new organization told St-Pierre the deal he had been working on with Feritta was not going to work.
When the deal fell through, St-Pierre hired a top lawyer, James Quinn who worked on terminating the contract for St-Pierre with UFC. St-Pierre said he had Quinn give the UFC a deadline for a fight and when that deadline wasn’t met, Quinn said that St-Pierre was out of his UFC contract.
St-Pierre is considered one of the greatest fighters in UFC history. He made his debut with the organization in 2004. It would seem logical that the UFC would be very accommodating to St-Pierre since he is such a huge star but that has not been the case. UFC President Dana White said that he simply didn’t believe St-Pierre was ready to fight.
“GSP said, ‘I’m going to do a little mini-camp’ and this and that [but] he’s been saying that for three years,” White said recently on FS1, “It’s lot of talk. GSP wasn’t loving fighting when he was fighting all the time. This is a sport you just have to. … First of all, it’s a young man’s game. You got to jump out of bed every day and want to kick people’s ass and want to be a world champion. GSP hasn’t had that fire in a very long time.”
Maybe that was the case with St-Pierre but White may be forgetting that St-Pierre has won his last 12 fights in a row including wins over Hendricks, Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit, Jake Shields and Josh Koscheck.
If St-Pierre does fight again in the UFC then White will have to eat crow as he said at UFC 200, “Georges St-Pierre will not fight again. I've said that before and I'll say it again. Georges St-Pierre is done. He is retired. He will not fight again… I've been in [the fight game] since I was 19 years old. I know the mentality of a fighter that wants to fight and I know the mentality of a fighter that does not want to fight."
St-Pierre disputed that talk from White saying, “When he’s saying that I’m not ready to fight there’s only one person who knows if I’m ready to fight and it’s myself,” St-Pierre said. “Dana White doesn’t know what it is to be a fighter. I know what it is to be a fighter.”
UFC 206 in Toronto
The perfect spot for St-Pierre to return would have been in Toronto for UFC 206. That card will have Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson as the headliner and neither of those two fighters has the appeal of St-Pierre. "It would have been a win-win situation,” St-Pierre said. “I think now what happened with this situation, the biggest loser is the fans. I'm a loser. The UFC is a loser. Even the UFC is a loser. They would have made good money."
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