Since Georges St-Pierre made his big octagon return at UFC 217 and won the middleweight title, fight fans have been on the edge of their seats waiting to see where “Rush” is going to go next. The fighter has claimed in the past that he is contractually obligated to unify his title in a match up against interim champion Robert Whittaker next. However, many fight fans are ready to see the fighter follow in Conor McGregor’s footsteps and try for another belt. With that in mind, the decision to change weight classes would not sit well with UFC President Dana White.
Speaking to reported at a recent media lunch in Las Vegas, as provided by MMA Fighting, White offered the following response when asked about the possibility of St-Pierre moving to a different division.
“I don’t want to hear that. That’s not what I want to hear. I want to hear he’s going to defend his 185-pound title. That’s the agreement we made. That’s the deal we made when we made the deal.”
Continuing his thought, White stated:
“I’m going to be super pissed (if St-Pierre wants to drop the title), and I don’t know where we go from there. Go to 170 — who’s better to fight at 170? You’ve got (Tyron) Woodley, you’ve got ‘Wonderboy,’ you’ve got (Yoel) Romero, and then you’ve got Luke Rockhold. F*cking monsters. They’re all monsters. There’s no fight that looks like, ‘Oh, maybe this is the fight for me to take.’ You looked at Bisping like he was a tune-up. You got your tune-up. There’s nothing but f*cking animals at ’85 and ’70.
“Rockhold is massive. He’s massive when he cuts weight. There’s no good options. To sit there and try to handpick people, or where you want to go and everything else, you can’t in this f*cking sport. They’re all nasty. You’re a fighter. Get in there and see who you can f*cking beat. You wanted to f*cking come back. Welcome back, it’s ugly.”
Speaking on the original deal with St-Pierre, Dana White added:
“I said, ‘I’ll tell you what: You want to come in and take this shot against Bisping, I’m cool with that, but you’ve got to defend the title,’” White said. “You can’t drop the title after the fight and then go somewhere else. It’s just, my thing is, to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man. And when the man just goes away — listen, if a guy is on a run and undefeated then wants to retire, that’s one thing. The guy retires the belt, that’s another thing. ‘Well, I’m going to drop this one and jump to 170 now,’ I don’t like it.
“That’s language in the contract. It’s in the contract.”
