Patrick Cote thinks his former training partner in GSP might just hang up the gloves.
Shortly after Georges St-Pierre’s big win at UFC 217 that saw him win his second belt in as many divisions, the natural question was always “what’s next?” Will he unify the belts with interim champion Robert Whittaker? Will he drop down to 170?
If you ask his friend and former training partner in Patrick Cote, GSP might not continue fighting at middleweight — or even in Mixed Martial Arts.
“I think he did very very well. Big doubt he fights at 185 again, but he did an amazing job,” Cote said at the MMA Hour.
“I don’t have any inside info, we’re not close as we used to be like a couple of years ago, but what he said about the hardest thing about gaining weight and things like that — I don’t know. I don’t want to take anything away from Bisping — I like this guy, he’s a worker, he’s an amazing fighter. But I think that he had a great opportunity, he became champion, but Georges against Whittaker or big guy like Romero — I don’t know.
“Georges is a super athlete, but he doesn’t have anything to prove against those big guys, so I don’t think he’s fighting at 185 anymore.”
Related: Stann: GSP suffers from some of the worst anxiety I’ve ever seen
Cote also went on to say that St-Pierre might just hang up the gloves, as his actions reminded him of his own retirement fight earlier in the year.
“I will not be surprised if he said ‘okay it’s over, I just wanted to feel that feeling again,’” he continued. “You know why I say that? Because it took him so much time to get out of the cage.
“He was standing in the cage and he was kind of feeling everything, he wanted to grab all the emotion. He was in the cage for almost 20 minutes after the fight, so he was looking away, he looking at everything — it looks like he was grabbing all the energy, and just to say that ‘Alright, that was that. I did it, and I’m not going to miss that anymore.’”
“I don’t know. This was the feeling I had when I was (retiring in New York), but we’ll see. I’m not going to be surprised if he’s done with fighting.”