Rumors were swirling at the weekend that two of the UFC’s biggest ever stars, Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva, could be set to meet in the main event of UFC 206 in Canada on December 10th, but not only has Dana White poured cold water on that, he’s continued to state his belief that GSP won’t return to the sport.
Even Anderson Silva’s own son Kalyl seemed to be buying into the hype regarding the potential superfight, claiming on social media that “Christmas month should be exciting,” alongside a picture of Silva and GSP standing next to each other, but White has denied that it’s in the works.
“GSP vs Anderson? That’s not true. That’s so not true,” White claimed in an interview with Dan Hardy for BT Sport after UFC 204. “I know everybody keeps talking about it — GSP isn’t even close. I’m telling you again, I don’t think GSP wants to fight. I keep saying this. You guys know fighters as much as I know fighters, do you think GSP wants to fight?”
“GSP wasn’t crazy about fighting when he was fighting. Now three years later he’s just dying to fight? He’s not. I don’t think he is.
“That fight is definitely not gonna happen. I just don’t think GSP ever returns. And in some cases, that’s not a bad thing. The guy retired, he went out on top, he’s looked at as one of the greatest to ever do it and I just think he lost that fire a long time ago.”
“For some reason he’s got his own person reasons — he likes to keep his name out there like he might be coming back and everybody is anticipating his return, but at the end of the day I don’t think he wants it.”
Of course, despite all his denials, White hasn’t exactly been the most reliable source of late. Let’s not forget that just a few weeks ago he also shot down rumors that Conor McGregor was going to fight Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, claiming that Alvarez was going to be fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov instead.
It later became clear that wasn’t the case, and as far as GSP goes it’s likely there’s more going on behind the scenes than White would care to admit.
GSP is believed to want a big payday, and he also has other contractual kinks that need to be worked out before he’d be willing to return, which is leading to this tense standoff between the two parties.
However, it’s signifcant to note that despite a light-heavyweight title rematch between Daniel Cormier and Anthony Johnson having been confirmed for UFC 206, the UFC has yet to officially confirm what the main event will be for the card, so that suggests there is still a possibility that the promotion may not have slammed the door shut on GSP just yet.
