Somewhere in Brazil, a “Spider” yawns.
And here I thought former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight titleholder Georges St-Pierre cleared the air with promotion president Dana White.
The Las Vegas fight boss was a recent guest on ESPN’s Russillo and Kanell show (via FOX Sports), explaining all the reasons why current UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor is such a great fighter to employ. First and foremost? “Notorious” had the testicular fortitude to jump to welterweight to fight a lightweight.
Ballsy!
Not like that yellow-bellied St-Pierre.
“That’s the thing, nobody wants to do it. GSP would never move up to 185 to fight Anderson Silva. He wouldn’t do it. That’s what makes Saturday so fun. You know how many times we wanted to do the GSP-Anderson Silva fight? GSP would not do it. Would not do it. Guys don’t do that stuff. That’s what makes Conor McGregor so unique, so fascinating and so fun. For GSP he was moving up one weight class. Conor McGregor jumped up two weight classes. Conor McGregor is so much fun in the fight business. Guys don’t do that. Guys who are making the money that Conor McGregor makes, has the money in the bank, and all the things that are going on with him, he has a world title, he just decides to jump up two weight classes and fight somebody else.”
I think he left someone off his list of imaginary scaredy cats.
White, as expected, is trying to maintain some of the momentum McGregor had at the start of the new year now that “Notorious” was forced to surrender to lightweight contender Nate Diaz in last weekend’s UFC 196 pay-per-view (PPV) main event.
That’s his job as a fight promoter.
But I’m not sure the comparison is fair when you consider more fitting examples, like BJ Penn — who is now a featherweight — fighting St-Pierre and Matt Hughes in their primes. Heck, “The Prodigy” even ballooned up to throw hands with Lyoto Machida at one point.
Anyone disagree?