Dana White has warned middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre in no uncertain terms not to get any idea about vacating the middleweight title he just won from Michael Bisping.
Speaking to reporters during a UFC 218 media scrum yesterday, White revealed that he would be meeting with GSP later that night and was in no mood to negotiate on what weight the Canadian superstar would be fighting at next.
“I don’t want to hear that. That’s not what I want to hear,” White told the press. “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.”
Up until this point St-Pierre has been tight-lipped about what he wants to do next, though the word from his camp after defeating Michael Bisping was that his move up in weight for the fight hadn’t gone smoothly, and the newly crowned champions hesitation to confirm that he would fight interim 185lb titleholder Robert Whittaker next has made people suspicious that he might just drop down to welterweight instead.
“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.”
Several times in the build-up to his fight with Bisping, the returning GSP acknowledged that it was in his contract that he had to take on Whittaker next if he emerged victorious, and that’s not a fact that White has forgotten.
“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. 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.”
Meanwhile, White indicated that any talk of St-Pierre fighting Conor McGregor next is little more than idle speculation.
“There’s never been one discussion ever about GSP vs. Conor. Ever. So that’s all internet sh*t that I’m assuming got started on that side.
“Every fight with Conor is a big money fight, and Tony Ferguson is next in line. How much bigger is GSP vs. Conor than Conor vs. anybody?”
Watch White’s full media scrum below.
