Some time around May. That’s the timeframe that UFC president Dana White has been trying to sell as when we will see the superfight between UFC middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre and UFC welterweight champion Anderson Silva. There’s just one little hold up, and that’s the fact that St-Pierre doesn’t seem all that interested in taking the fight so soon.
St-Pierre recently came back from an 18-month layoff and showed little evidence of the dreaded ring rust when he defeated Carlos Condit at UFC 154 via unanimous decision. Yes, the longtime head honcho of the UFC’s 170-pound division looked worse for wear after absorbing 113 strikes to the melon, but he walked away the winner, unifying his title with the interim belt that Condit had won while St-Pierre was out rehabbing from knee surgery.
White has been pushing the Silva versus St-Pierre fight for some time. The promotion went so far as to fly Silva to Montreal so he could do a pre-fight question and answer session with the media and sit cageside and observe the St-Pierre versus Condit bout.
Despite the interest from Silva and White, St-Pierre doesn’t seem to feel that now is the right time for him to take the fight against the middleweight champion. Appearing on Radio-Canada’s “Tout Le Monde en Parle,” St-Pierre said, (translation from French via MMAFighting.com):
I’m not scared of him (Silva) — it’s just that I will take this fight when it makes sense for me. I just came back from an injury, there’s money to be made, there are fights in my weight class, other challenges out there, and if I fight him, I will have to gain weight, while he will have to lose weight, and then afterwards, I won’t be able to come back to my weight class.
First and foremost, I have things to do at 170 pounds. When I am ready and when I want the fight, that’s when it will happen.
St-Pierre has expressed these very sentiments before, saying that a move up from his 170-pound fighting weight will not allow his naturally ectomorphic body to come back down to welterweight once he puts weight on to fight a heavier fighter. As far as the work to be done in the welterweight division, the champion is speaking the truth there as well.
Prior to his layoff, one could have claimed that St-Pierre had cleaned out the 170-pound division, but that claim no longer stands.
There’s Johny Hendricks waiting in the wings after a brutal 46-second knockout of Martin Kampmann at UFC 154. Nick Diaz will return from suspension in February. Demain Maia and Jon Fitch are getting ready to face off. Nate Marquardt will most likely transfer over from Strikeforce in early 2013.
Erick Silva will be looking to rebound and make a statement after losing to Fitch and then there’s always the chance that some sleeper fighter will make a statement in the not too distant future, say, someone like Siyar Bahadurzada. In short, there are plenty of options for St-Pierre at 170.
At this point, St-Pierre isn’t interested in a fight he referred to as “ the cherry on the sundae,” he’s interested in defending his title and continuing to build his legacy, something that no one should chastise him for.
It’s not the end of the world if the Silva versus St-Pierre fight doesn’t happen in May and it’s good to know that St-Pierre, even through the swollen and bruised eyes Condit left him with, sees things a little clearer than some.
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