It’s rare that welterweight champion Georges St.Pierre ever voluntarily brings up talk of a potential superfight, but that appeared to be the case earlier this week in New York during an interview with Ariel Helwani.
“There is things I want to do in my MMA career, you know…I can’t tell you everything right now,” GSP told the MMAfighting.com reporter with a smile.
Despite being pressed about it further, GSP was keeping his cards close to his chest about what he actually meant, though he hinted that it was something big.
“I can’t tell, because if I say everybody is going to know. You’ll see! It’s better I keep it secret. When it happens it’s going to blow up.”
So, what could be be referring to?
The obvious answer would be that he has some form of ‘superfight’ up his sleeve. For long and weary he’s been hounded about a blockbuster showdown with Anderson Silva, but now would seem an unlikely time to be attempting to put together that fight as the Brazilian is coming off a loss and his focus is now on revenge and regaining his middleweight title in a rematch with Chris Weidman in December.
If Weidman defeats Silva again then a fight with GSP would essentially be null and void, and it’s likely that Weidman would have to defend his title against a few top contenders at 185lbs before being in a position to entertain a superfight himself.
Perhaps the biggest clue as to what GSP might have in mind comes from a little tidbit of information he let slip later in his interview with Helwani.
“‘Superfight’ doesn’t mean I have to go… it’s 15 pounds between categories. It’s a lot of options. We’ll see.”
That would suggest that what he’s actually contemplating is a move down to 155lbs to take on current lightweight champion Ben Henderson.
That would make sense from his perspective in a number of different ways. For one thing he’s always been reluctant to move up in weight, fearing that he’d be undersized at middleweight, so stepping down a division is likely to be more appealing.
Henderson has already shown a willingess to fight St.Pierre too, and it could be a way for the Canadian to make way at 170lbs for his fellow friend and team-mate Rory MacDonald.
GSP Vs Henderson wouldn’t be nearly as big of a fight as GSP Vs Silva could have been, but it would still be a spectacle and offers him the chance to attempt to hold a title at two different weight classes which is likely an ambition he wants to fulfull before he retires.
Of course this is all just speculation at this point. All we do know for certain is that St.Pierre has to get through Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 in November before there’s even a remote chance of this happening, and that’s by no means going to be an easy task.
