Boxing coach to the stars, Freddie Roach has confirmed that former UFC welterweight champion is set to undergo a six week training camp within the next 10 days in order to establish whether he’s ready to make a comeback to the Octagon or not, but UFC President Dana White is still highly skeptical that he will ever fight again.
““He’s very logical about [a possible return],” Roach told the LA Times. “He’s going to have a six-week training camp. We’re going to train every day like we’re having a fight, and at the end of the six weeks, if he feels he has the desire to go on with it — if he wants to fight — then we will fight again.
“If he doesn’t, we’ll call it quits.”
However, White, who’s stated in the past that he doesn’t think GSP will ever return, laughed off this latest development when approached by the LA Times about it.
“I highly doubt it’s going to happen because GSP’s been off for too long and has a ton of money,” White said. “You don’t do a six-week camp to learn if you have the hunger. You either know it or not. Robbie Lawler knows it, he’s hungry, he trains like an animal.
“You’re either hungry and an animal or you’re not.”
That’s not to say that White wouldn’t love to see one of the sport’s biggest and best ever stars making a return, but he’s certainly not about to get his hopes up that it’s going to happen.
“It’d be great if he comes back, yes, I love Georges St-Pierre — amazing athlete — but comeback talk? I laugh at it. To be a world champion, you have to be hungry.
“That’s not GSP. Not even close.”
It’s an interesting stance from White. It would be a huge boon for the UFC to have someone with GSP’s star power back in the UFC heading into 2016, so you’d think he would be doing everything he could to pave the way for his return.
On the other hand, White has been burned in the past in these situations, making bold statements about other big name stars such as Brock Lesnar returning to the UFC or Gina Carano making her UFC debut, only for the fighters to change their minds at the last minute.
So perhaps a healthy dose of skepticism is the right outlook here, but rest assured that if GSP does eventually decide to return to the UFC, no-one will have a broader smile on their face that Dana White.
