In the latest episode of Ariel Helwani’s ‘MMA Beat’ show TV host Mike Straka claimed that UFC welterweight star Georges St.Pierre was asking for $50 million for a superfight with Anderson Silva.
“I was told by somebody very close to Georges that Georges today makes close to $8 million a fight. So to fight Anderson Silva he’s going to ask for $50 million,” Straka claimed on the show.
“He said that Georges has 10 fights left in his career at $8 million a fight. But he believes that Anderson could actually hurt him, could physically hurt him and end his career. So to take that chance he wants $50 million and that’s exactly the number he’s going to go to Dana White with.”
It’s a very interesting bit of news if true and would more than likely put the fight out of reach for the UFC despite White’s previous claim that money was no object when it comes to putting this fight together.
However, according to GSP this rumor is simply not true.
“I have not been informed of this, it is not true. Nobody told me about it and I am in France now, I have not seen the article,” St.Pierre told 985Sports.ca.
Whether there is an element of truth to it or not I think the signs right now are that the Canadian champion is erring towards shying away from the superfight for now.
We’ll have to see how it all unfolds, but right now it seems to me that GSP has his sights set on Nick Diaz. He’s said in the past that he wants that fight, and tellingly, earlier this week his coach Firas Zahabi started banging the drum for this match-up, claiming that Diaz was the number one contender rather than Johny Hendricks.
“I think Diaz is the guy who deserves it most,” Zahabi told USA Today on Tuesday. “His fight with Carlos (Condit) was so close. Who knows? People judge it both ways. He’s the guy who is the Strikeforce champion. He climbed up the ladder all the way. Johny deserves it very much, but Diaz has been there longer and done more fights and has bigger wins.”
And unsurprisingly Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie is more than happy to support that idea.
“It’s the fight the fans want to see and that’s the bottom line. From a career perspective, Nick Diaz is a much more famous fighter and has bigger fights than anyone else… We would absolutely be happy, obviously, to take that fight next if that is the case.”
