UFC Head Honcho Dana White Explains Why He Will Not Book Khabib vs. GSP
Georges St-Pierre, a former UFC welterweight and middleweight champion, recently announced his retirement from UFC after promotion showed no interest in booking him against Khabib Nurmagomedov. GSP wanted to secure his legacy as greatest of all time by dropping down in a weight class and win a title.
St-Pierre last fought back in December of 2017 where he choked out Michael Bisping to win the 185-pound belt.
Not long ago Khabib’s manager Ali Abdelaziz said if all goes well ‘Eagle’ could be fighting GSP in late 2019.
UFC head honcho Dana White has repeated many times in the past that he wouldn’t give GSP another title shot after he failed to fulfill his promise.
“Well there’s two things — first of all, who doesn’t love Georges St-Pierre? Love Georges St-Pierre, the best ever as far as human beings, great guy, love him. Georges St-Pierre and I had a deal, he was going to fight [Michael] Bisping at 185 pounds and if he won, he would defend the title. He bailed on that. Didn’t do it,” White told TSN (via MMA Fighting). “So you can’t just come out and hand pick fights that you want for titles.”
As promised ‘Rush’ supposed to defend his middleweight title, but he didn’t and relinquished the strap due to alternative colitis. After being healthy St-Pierre came out of camouflage and started campaigning for Khabib fight. At one point Khabib encourages GSP to postpone his retirement until November.
“He made this deal with me that he would defend the title,” White explained. “He went in and he saw Bisping as an easy fight. He fought Bisping and then you look at the guys that are behind Bisping and they’re all killers. They’re all literally killers. But now to come back and he wants to fight at 155 for the title. We’re not doing a goofy 165 [pound] whatever, that’s not going to happen.”
Even current 155-pound king Khabib Nurmagomedov still have that desire to throwdown with St-Pierre, and it looks like series of talks needs to happen before this match ever comes to fruition.
“I guess if I get into a position where Khabib, the champ, wants it bad enough, we’re going to have to talk about it, but at the end of the day it doesn’t make sense to me,” White said. “You have other guys lined up behind him. You’re just asking me if Tony Ferguson is going to get a shot. We’ll give you a shot after Georges St-Pierre slides in at 155 and gets his shot. Then you’ve got Conor [McGregor] who wants a rematch,” he added.
“There’s guys backed up that want to fight in that division. You can’t come back out of retirement and hand pick fights that you want when you didn’t even keep your word with me on defending the [185] pound belt. Have I made that clear?”
Before this, all happen Khabib needs to get through Dustin Poirier at upcoming UFC 242 pay-per-view (PPV) MMA event on Sept. 7, 2019, in Abu Dhabi.
How many of you want to see GSP vs Khabib down the road?
1 thought on “Dana White Loves Georges St-Pierre But Wouldnt Offer Him Khabib Title Fight”
I’m a kabib and gsp fan, but Dana has a point !!