We’re not sure if you’ve heard about this yet but UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre hung onto his belt this past Saturday at UFC 167 with a controversial split decision win over Johny Hendricks and then kinda, sorta announced a retirement, of sorts. The story hasn’t got much attention so first off, we wanted to make sure you knew about that.
In any case, UFC president Dana White is intent on bringing GSP back to fight Hendricks again and, according to a new report from Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole, who is in Macau to cover the Manny Pacquiao/Brandon Rios boxing match this week, “Rush” told “PacMan” trainer Freddie Roach that he’ll never fight again if he doesn’t have him in his corner.
Roach said he has yet to speak to St-Pierre on the telephone, but said the champion texted him.
“He said, ‘I’m not going to fight again unless you are in my corner,'” Roach said. Asked to clarify if that meant on fight night, as well, Roach said, “Absolutely.” To this point, Roach has never been in a UFC fighter’s corner on the night of a fight.
Roach, always eager to promote himself, also said that he “pretty much came up with the game plan” for St. Pierre against Hendricks. So…good job?
We’re not sure if you’ve heard about this yet but UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre hung onto his belt this past Saturday at UFC 167 with a controversial split decision win over Johny Hendricks and then kinda, sorta announced a retirement, of sorts. The story hasn’t got much attention so first off, we wanted to make sure you knew about that.
In any case, UFC president Dana White is intent on bringing GSP back to fight Hendricks again and, according to a new report from Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole, who is in Macau to cover the Manny Pacquiao/Brandon Rios boxing match this week, “Rush” told “PacMan” trainer Freddie Roach that he’ll never fight again if he doesn’t have him in his corner.
Roach said he has yet to speak to St-Pierre on the telephone, but said the champion texted him.
“He said, ‘I’m not going to fight again unless you are in my corner,’” Roach said. Asked to clarify if that meant on fight night, as well, Roach said, “Absolutely.” To this point, Roach has never been in a UFC fighter’s corner on the night of a fight.
Roach, always eager to promote himself, also said that he “pretty much came up with the game plan” for St. Pierre against Hendricks. So…good job?
I wrote elsewhere today that St. Pierre may very well want to go ahead and stay retired. He’s anxious, can’t sleep and suspects that aliens are fucking with him. Plus, he’s almost gotten knocked out two out of his last three fights and has been at it for over a decade.
I don’t know what’s more worrisome — St. Pierre believing that he’s been abducted by extra-terrestrials or him believing that Freddie Roach knows anything about MMA and should therefore be designing his game-plans and cornering him during fights.
It’s safe to say that Georges St. Pierre’s post-fight interview/semi-retirement raised a lot of questions in regards to not only his mental well-being, but the litany of personal issues he claimed were forcing him to step away from the sport. Although Dana White was quick to tell reporters that GSP’s problems “aren’t as bad as he thinks they are,” Dana White is neither a recognized psychologist nor a Scanner to our knowledge, so his opinions mean fuck all.
Being the bottom-feeders that they truly are, TMZ in turn used St. Pierre’s ambiguous post-fight speech as a platform to let the unsubstantiated rumors fly — specifically, that his father was dying and that he had knocked up a woman who was keeping the baby against his wishes.
In any case, White spoke to St. Pierre yesterday and has since refuted both rumors via The LA Times. While he neglected to discuss the specifics of GSP’s “personal issues,” St. Pierre’s former manager, Stephane Patry, attempted to shed some light on the issue during a segment on Quebec’s 98.5 FM Sports. His statements are after the jump:
It’s safe to say that Georges St. Pierre’s post-fight interview/semi-retirement raised a lot of questions in regards to not only his mental well-being, but the litany of personal issues he claimed were forcing him to step away from the sport. Although Dana White was quick to tell reporters that GSP’s problems “aren’t as bad as he thinks they are,” Dana White is neither a recognized psychologist nor a Scanner to our knowledge, so his opinions mean fuck all.
Being the bottom-feeders that they truly are, TMZ in turn used St. Pierre’s ambiguous post-fight speech as a platform to let the unsubstantiated rumors fly – specifically, that his father was dying and that he had knocked up a woman who was keeping the baby against his wishes.
In any case, White spoke to St. Pierre yesterday and has since refuted both rumors via The LA Times. While he neglected to discuss the specifics of GSP’s “personal issues,” St. Pierre’s former manager, Stephane Patry, attempted to shed some light on the issue during a segment on Quebec’s 98.5 FM Sports (Props to BloodyElbow for the translation):
“Do you have any idea what the personal problems that seem to have haunted him and affected his concentration during these past few weeks or days are?”
Patry: “The only thing that I can think of, that I know of, is that between the period where I was his manager and his current management, he had a manager for three years, a woman named Shari Spencer. It didn’t end well between them. When things ended between me and Georges, we stayed good friends but it ended very badly with Shari Spencer and I know she’s suing him for several million dollars. I don’t know if the lawsuit is advancing against Georges and he’s gonna lose it but I don’t see another problem. His parents are in good health, his two sisters too and he doesn’t have health problems otherwise he couldn’t fight. The only thing I could see…”
“Georges doesn’t have children?”
Patry: “No, he doesn’t have any children either. At the moment he isn’t married, he has someone in his life but that’s not on this side either that’s 100% sure. The only thing I can see is the lawsuit with his former manager.”
As we all know, St. Pierre split with Spencer in late 2010 to pursue a somewhat misinformed business relationship with fictional “Entourage” power agent Ari Gold that was sadly doomed from the start. Prior to that, St. Pierre was managed by Patry while training at Brazilian Top Team Canada. He split with both following his shocking upset loss to Matt Serra at UFC 69.
While Patry’s words help shed some light on the mental state of St. Pierre nowadays, they still raise a lot of questions. In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, GSP stated that he had “a bunch of stuff happening” that required his full attention. While it’s understandable that a multi-million dollar lawsuit could trouble a guy even if he makes 12 million dollars a year, it also makes one wonder if said lawsuit is the *only* obstacle St. Pierre is currently facing.
In any case, White also told the LA Times that a St. Pierre/Hendricks rematch is “on track” despite St. Pierre’s pesky concerns for his future health:
As far as a rematch, we’re on schedule and I’ll have a date within a couple weeks. I feel confident that Georges is fine with that and all is on track.
So there you have it: A personally conflicted, emotionally/physically battered and uninterested GSP is already on track to rematch the guy who beat him into semi-retirement, before he can even recover from said beating. We’re sure that nothing terrible can possibly come from this scenario.
Enough is enough—Georges St-Pierre needs to officially retire. UFC president Dana White won’t like it. Fans likely won’t either. Too bad. St-Pierre clearly has some issues he needs to iron out during a hiatus from the Octagon. A permanent hiatus. There’s no reason at the age of 32 St-Pierre should look like this after a […]
Enough is enough—Georges St-Pierre needs to officially retire. UFC president Dana White won’t like it. Fans likely won’t either. Too bad. St-Pierre clearly has some issues he needs to iron out during a hiatus from the Octagon. A permanent hiatus. There’s no reason at the age of 32 St-Pierre should look like this after a […]
“I offered Nick Diaz a fight last week and his manager called me back saying he’s retired,” said Dana White.
One must wonder who Dana White offered up. There was once talk of Diaz vs. Machida, as well as Diaz vs. Bisping. Yet neither of those fights came to pass.
It’s unfortunate that Diaz, one of MMA’s most divisive (yet popular) and exciting fighters has decided to stay out of the sport while fighters like Matt Hamill have decided to grace us with their painfully mediocre presence once more.
Instead of returning to the Octagon, Diaz decided to found the clusterfuck-laden WAR MMA promotion which was about as successful as YAMMA Pit Fighting.
But even if he stays retired, Diaz will have a lasting legacy in MMA despite never capturing a UFC title.
(Nick Diaz yawning while fighting GSP. / Photo via Getty)
“I offered Nick Diaz a fight last week and his manager called me back saying he’s retired,” said Dana White.
One must wonder who Dana White offered up. There was once talk of Diaz vs. Machida, as well as Diaz vs. Bisping. Yet neither of those fights came to pass.
It’s unfortunate that Diaz, one of MMA’s most divisive and exciting fighters, has decided to stay out of the sport while fighters like Matt Hamill have decided to grace us with their painfully mediocre presence once more.
Instead of returning to the Octagon, Diaz decided to found the clusterfuck-laden WAR MMA promotion which was about as successful as YAMMA Pit Fighting.
But even if he stays retired, Diaz will have a lasting legacy in MMA despite never capturing a UFC title.
(Who saw this coming? We did, that’s who. Photo via Getty.)
Until his initial retirement back in August of 2011, Matt Hamill was considered by most to be a perennial contender at 205 lbs., a fierce grappler with ever-improving striking and a positively inspirational member of the deaf community. While the latter accolade still remains true two years and one unretirement later, the former have seemingly (and sadly) all but vanished in Hamill’s recent octagon appearances.
I was ready to make this decision after UFC 130 but my friends, family coaches and most importantly my daughter encouraged me to give it one last chance. My career has been plagued by injuries starting with The Ultimate Fighter and disrupted my training ever since.
There hasn’t been even one training camp where I’ve been able to train without training around an injury. I have not been kind to my body and it has nothing left after 28 years of non stop competition. It’s time to finally give it a rest.
I have fallen in love with the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and I will continue to coach at our gym Mohawk Valley MMA along side my teammates and help the next generation of fighters make it to the UFC.
You see, that’s the thing that has irked us most about Hamill’s decision to unretire (and we’ve mentioned this before) — his retirement, this statement, was just so, appropriate. Hamill seemed self-aware, he seemed content, and most of all, he seemed comfortable with the legacy he had left behind while understanding that his time — as a fighter, at least — had come and gone. It was a mature, thoughtful decision not often reached by most combat sports athletes, let alone MMA fighters. It was closure.
Less than a year after making said decision, Hamill recanted on it. And now, rather than retire with the aforementioned sense of closure, it appears that Hamill has been released by the UFC following his disheartening loss to Thiago Silva at Fight Night 29. God only knows what lies in store for “The Hammer” now.
(Who saw this coming? We did, that’s who. Photo via Getty.)
Until his initial retirement back in August of 2011, Matt Hamill was considered by most to be a perennial contender at 205 lbs., a fierce grappler with ever-improving striking and a positively inspirational member of the deaf community. While the latter accolade still remains true two years and one unretirement later, the former have seemingly (and sadly) all but vanished in Hamill’s recent octagon appearances.
I was ready to make this decision after UFC 130 but my friends, family coaches and most importantly my daughter encouraged me to give it one last chance. My career has been plagued by injuries starting with The Ultimate Fighter and disrupted my training ever since.
There hasn’t been even one training camp where I’ve been able to train without training around an injury. I have not been kind to my body and it has nothing left after 28 years of non stop competition. It’s time to finally give it a rest.
I have fallen in love with the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and I will continue to coach at our gym Mohawk Valley MMA along side my teammates and help the next generation of fighters make it to the UFC.
You see, that’s the thing that has irked us most about Hamill’s decision to unretire (and we’ve mentioned this before) — his retirement, this statement, was just so, appropriate. Hamill seemed self-aware, he seemed content, and most of all, he seemed comfortable with the legacy he had left behind while understanding that his time — as a fighter, at least — had come and gone. It was a mature, thoughtful decision not often reached by most combat sports athletes, let alone MMA fighters. It was closure.
Less than a year after making said decision, Hamill recanted on it. And now, rather than retire with the aforementioned sense of closure, it appears that Hamill has been released by the UFC following his disheartening loss to Thiago Silva at Fight Night 29. God only knows what lies in store for “The Hammer” now.
Although Hamill insisted that he had *finally* recovered from the nagging training injuries that had affected him for years upon returning to the sport in early 2012 (sound familiar?), his “comeback” performance against Roger Hollett — who holds the distinct honor of being brought in as a late-notice injury replacement for himself — at UFC 152 spoke quite to the contrary. The fight was tough to watch for a multitude of reasons, the most damning of which being Hamill’s sloppy, tired performance against a similarly gassed fighter he would have rolled through less than a year prior.
We tried writing off Hamill’s performance as the result of ring rust, but don’t we always with guys we generally wish the best for? When he was paired with Thiago Silva at Fight Night 29, however, we reacted with legitimate fear. To borrow a much-overused phrase, Hamill had nothing left to prove. Likewise, the beating he was surely set to endure would only tarnish the legacy he had worked so hard to build.
It was by the grace of God that Silva showed up in as poor of shape as he did, because we can only imagine what he would have done to Hamill had he put a good training camp in. Within two rounds, Hamill was literally staggering around the octagon as a result of Silva’s leg kicks, his hands on his hips, too tired to even return fire. While happening upon a replay of the fight at a bar some two days later, my father could only muster to me that “the white guy looks like he just stumbled out of here and into that ring.” It was a surprisingly accurate assessment.
Of course, the obvious counter to my long-winded lament is, “Who are you to decide when a fighter should retire?” And I have no counter for your counter, other than to simply ask, ”Have Hamill’s past two fights done anything to *improve* your image of him?” Were the last couple paychecks he received worth the abuse and humiliation?
I write this as a fan, Matt. I write this as someone who has followed your MMA career from the beginning. Hell, I write this as a fellow human being. Please, see this as a sign. See this as a sign to be the exception to the rule, as you have been your entire career, and retire (again) before you inflict anymore unnecessary punishment on yourself. Because the last thing this sport needs is another fighter who simply refuses to accept his mortality.
Oh yeah, and it looks like David Mitchell and Nandor Guelmino have been fired as well. Their career eulogies are forthcoming.
“I do not know if they (UFC) are willing to support me,” St. Pierre told La Presse. “I thought they were ready to support me, but I was disappointed, very disappointed with this turn of events. There are things I can not say. I do not want to get back to the UFC because it is my employer. However, I do not take journalists for idiots. They are able to read between the lines. They are able to see what happens.”
“It bothers me a little to fight against guys who use performance-enhancing drugs, because it is not fair,” he continued. “There are those who say: ‘Doping, it does not bother me.’ Me, it bothers me. But I’ll do it anyway, the fight. Without accusing anyone, if there are some who do not want to do the tests, I’ll do the fighting. It will not be the first time. But it’s just that I’m getting a little tired.”
How tired, exactly? So tired that GSP is now making the first retirement threat of his career, via his longtime trainer Firas Zahabi:
(Luckily, it was a non-title bout. / Photo via Getty)
“I do not know if they (UFC) are willing to support me,” St. Pierre told La Presse. “I thought they were ready to support me, but I was disappointed, very disappointed with this turn of events. There are things I can not say. I do not want to get back to the UFC because it is my employer. However, I do not take journalists for idiots. They are able to read between the lines. They are able to see what happens.”
“It bothers me a little to fight against guys who use performance-enhancing drugs, because it is not fair,” he continued. “There are those who say: ‘Doping, it does not bother me.’ Me, it bothers me. But I’ll do it anyway, the fight. Without accusing anyone, if there are some who do not want to do the tests, I’ll do the fighting. It will not be the first time. But it’s just that I’m getting a little tired.”
How tired, exactly? So tired that GSP is now making the first retirement threat of his career, via his longtime trainer Firas Zahabi:
Already the most dominant welterweight champion in UFC history, GSP has very little left to prove — outside of a hypothetical run at middleweight, which he’s never seemed too thrilled about. If his perspective is that the UFC isn’t doing all it can to prevent PEDs from infiltrating the sport, you can see how it might make him disenchanted with his profession.
Then again, St. Pierre’s retirement threat might just be the temporary product of a foul mood. Anderson Silva has been doing this sort of thing for five years now. And of course, any fighter can retire when things aren’t going well; it’s staying retired that seems to be the tough part in this sport. What does GSP expect to do with his life, film those awful NOS Active commercials all day?
I will say this, though: If St. Pierre really is losing motivation, retirement probably is the best option for him. GSP belongs to that rarified group of MMA phenoms whose talent far exceeds the rest of their peers, and who only begin to lose fights when they stop wanting victory more than their opponents. (See also: Fedor, Anderson.) So which would you rather see — a prematurely-retired Georges St. Pierre, or a disinterested GSP who sticks around until he starts losing?
