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Georges St-Pierre says he realized the non-existence of a “Greatest of All-Time.”
Just by looking at his UFC resumé alone, you can make a sound argument that Georges St-Pierre is one of the greatest to ever do it. But as far as being at the top of that mountain, the two-division UFC champion says it is impossible to achieve.
“When I was young, I wanted to be the best of all time,” St-Pierre told Ariel Helwani in a live video chat on Tuesday (transcript by MMA Junkie). “But when I got older and had more experience, I realized it’s just a fugazi – it doesn’t exist. You can’t be the best guy on the planet.
“There’s always one guy that will beat you,” he continued. “There’s guys better than you who maybe are not fighting. That’s how the world works. There will always be one guy that will have your number, and he will beat you. There’s no (best) guy.”
For St-Pierre, no fighter can stay at the top for too long.
“It’s just a matter of timing. Everybody can beat anybody on any given day,” he said. “There are guys that have your number – you don’t know why. (But) they have your number. In the fight game, it’s not a straight line.”
One of the two losses on St-Pierre’s record was an upset against Matt Serra in 2007. He did reclaim the UFC welterweight title and subsequently defended it nine times. He came out of a four-year hiatus in 2017 to win the middleweight title against Michael Bisping, before officially retiring in early 2019.