Georges St-Pierre says long-rumored superfight talks with Anderson Silva under the UFC banner shut down after just one conversation with the promotion.
According to St-Pierre, he was approached a single time by UFC figures Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta about moving up in weight to face Silva. He says he agreed in principle, but only under specific conditions regarding pay, weight and testing.
“I was only asked once by Dana and Lorenzo… and I had the request because I was like, OK, you want me to get out of my way to go up a weight class, I need to be compensated because it’s different. I’m full of challenges in my weight class, so if I’m fighting someone bigger I need to change my training, try to get bigger, maybe,” St-Pierre said.
“So my request was to fight Anderson Silva, I want to be put under contract,” he continued. “So it would be at a catchweight, so after that I could [go back down]. … If I go up, I needed to go back down because I wouldn’t spend my career there. And the third one was I wanted to have drug testing implemented. And they never got back to me.”
St-Pierre emphasized he could only describe what happened on his side of the talks. “I don’t know what was happening on Anderson Silva’s side,” he said, adding, “I don’t know if they asked Anderson about that, but they only asked me once.”
Both St-Pierre and Silva are described as the most accomplished champions in UFC welterweight and middleweight history, and fans strongly desired the dream matchup during their dominant title runs.
