In the past, both Khabib Nurmagomedov and Georges St-Pierre have expressed their desire to fight one another inside the octagon. The former UFC Welterweight and Middleweight Champion has stated that one of the reasons he ultimately retired from in-ring competition was due to not getting the opportunity to face the Lightweight Champion.
Given that this is a money fight for the UFC, it is surprising that Dana White has refused to book this bout; however, the UFC President finally reveals why he hasn’t made the match-up between the two fighters, which stems from several broken promises from St-Pierre (transcript courtesy of
mmafighting.com):
“Well there’s two things — first of all, who doesn’t love Georges St-Pierre? Love Georges St-Pierre, the best ever as far as human beings, great guy, love him. Georges St-Pierre and I had a deal, he was going to fight [Michael] Bisping at 185 pounds and if he won, he would defend the title. He bailed on that. Didn’t do it,” White told
TSN recently in Canada.
“So you can’t just come out and hand pick fights that you want for titles.”
Bisping ended up vacating the title due to battling colitis; however, Dana White wasn’t thrilled about the decision St-Pierre made, but wasn’t surprised that he did it:
“At the end of the day, there’s a reason I put that stuff in the contract for him to sign,” White told reporters during the press release at UFC Fresno.
“There’s a reason. And am I shocked? I don’t think anybody is shocked. He came out, he hand-picked Bisping and then went away again. So, whatever, it is what it is.”
The UFC President makes it clear that he isn’t changing his mind anytime soon, unless Khabib wants the fight bad enough:
“I guess if I get into a position where Khabib the champ wants it bad enough, we’re going to have to talk about it but at the end of the day it doesn’t make sense to me,” White said.
“You have other guys lined up behind him. You’re just asking me if Tony Ferguson is going to get a shot. We’ll give you a shot after Georges St-Pierre slides in at 155 and gets his shot. Then you’ve got Conor [McGregor] who wants a rematch.
“There’s guys backed up that want to fight in that division. You can’t come back out of retirement and hand pick fights that you want when you didn’t even keep your word with me on defending the [185] pound belt. Have I made that clear?”