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The boy who cried “Eagle” is still insisting he would return to the Octagon, but is he just trying to protect his image, or does “Rush” have a legitimate desire to win a lightweight title?
No one in the history of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has ever won championship titles in three different weight classes, simply because of the size disparity across the existing divisions. Just imagine featherweight titleholder Max Holloway trying to stop the takedowns of welterweight kingpin Kamaru Usman, who would probably double-leg the lanky Hawaiian into next week.
That’s not the kind of thing to deter former 170-pound deity Georges St-Pierre, who packed on the pounds and won the middleweight title from Michael Bisping back in late 2017. “Rush” has recently been teasing a drop to 155 pounds to challenge lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Who just so happens to have a St-Pierre clause in his UFC contract.
“If the right fight came along, they know where to find me,” St-Pierre told ESPN (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “We tried to make the right fight but it didn’t work. If everything is aligned contractually, everything is good, as we speak now, yes I would.”
In case you didn’t watch the above video and consider his comments to be overly ambiguous, the interviewer flat-out asks St-Pierre if Nurmagomedov is the right fight, which “Rush” promptly confirmed. That said, contractual alignment is another story altogether.
Especially with promotion president, Dana White, flip-flopping on the return of St-Pierre, the former “king” of pay-per-view (PPV) buys. One minute he refuses to give the French-Canadian phenom an immediate title shot, the next minute he’s ready to put pen to paper.
None of this matters unless Tony Ferguson is somehow ruled ineligible to compete for the lightweight crown. Barring injury, “El Cucuy” is next in line for “The Eagle” and is expected to get his crack at Nurmagomedov at some point in early 2020.