Bas has a conspiracy theory about GSP

UFC Hall of Famer Bas Rutten appeared recently on Submission Radio and discussed Tyron Woodley, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Georges St-Pierre, among others. GSP has not fought since 2013 and is returning to a title shot vs. UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping. Bas does not believe the years-long break is disqualifying.

A long layoff to me, it was nothing, seven years,” he said. “But it was also because my sparring is completely different. I spar every day, two times a day. That’s what I do because that’s what I’m gonna do in the fight, so that’s what I’m gonna do in training. And that’s besides all the other training that I do. So I think that’s very important. If you do that – I had no ring rust or cage rust, or whatever you want to call it, at all. I felt great.

“But for him just to come back after a while – look at Johny Hendricks, where Johny Hendricks right now is. Johny Hendricks, many think that he beat GSP, right? It’s a different platform of fighters right now. And I think fighting one weight class up, he’s gonna be the smaller guy now because him making that weight, I mean, in the past he couldn’t do it. We wanted to see it at a catchweight against Anderson Silva. That didn’t happen. I thought that was maybe gonna be the fight that made him come back. But of course he right away wants to go for a title.”

Three fighters – Randy Couture, BJ Penn, and Conor McGregor – have won belts in two divisions. But only Conor has held two at once. Bas believes that St-Pierre too wants to be a dual belt holder.

“I, deep down inside – well this is my conspiracy theory,” began Bas. “I think he wants to be a two-division champion as well. So I have the feeling that once he has this, I don’t think [he ’ll stay at middleweight]. I feel really bad for Yoel Romero if – I’m saying if he wins this fight, which is gonna be very hard for him to win I think – but if he wins this fight, I don’t think he’ll face Yoel Romero. He might actually drop in weight and go for another belt and try to do that.

Bas believes Woodley vs. Wonderboy 1 was won by Woodley, and 2 by Thompson.

The first time they fought I thought actually that Woodley won the fight and now I thought Wonderboy won the fight,” said Bas. “And I love both these guys, it’s not anything like bagging people down, it’s just you’re saying what you’re seeing and that’s what I thought. The first two rounds I would say, well it’s Thompson cause he was pushing. Yeah they didn’t throw a lot of punches, they didn’t do anything, but if somebody was pressing the action the whole time, it was him.

“Was it really pressing? Was it really baiting for him to throw a strike? Because that’s what I think he was doing of course, to throw a strike so he could counter that. Yeah, but he had the illusion that he was pushing it, he was pushing him backwards the whole time and Woodley had his back against the cage the whole time. So then you have to go give it to [Thompson]. And then of course round number three, I thought that was Woodley. Round number five of course [went to Woodley] when he started unloading and connecting, but it was not a 10-8 round. It was not like he was dazed and almost out. That would be a 10-9 round. So yeah, I thought it was three rounds for Thompson and two rounds for Woodley.

Rutten also commented on Woodley arguing that the UFC was insufficiently promoting him.

“For me it’s .… a long time back – this is a different thing but it’s kind of the same – I had a fighter in Pancrase and he was constantly complaining about more money, he needed more money, he needed more money,” said Bas. “And the only thing I told him, I said, ‘just win fights. Just keep winning fights. That’s the only way to get more money, if you keep winning.’ But then he lost a fight and he was complaining again, he wanted more money, and needless to say they dumped him. They said they didn’t need a guy like that.

“You know, you need to win and you need to win in spectacular fashion if you want a money fight, yeah, but you need to be that money guy. And you can see in the breakdown that I had, I said that if Woodley comes out and he just pushes Thompson, he’s gonna win this fight, because last time when he did that he did phenomenal, and now he started doing that in the fifth round. He could have done that earlier.

“And if the bar wouldn’t have been set as high, but both fighters said – well, Thompson [said that he] figured him out, that’s what he said, that he was gonna put the hurt on Woodley. And Woodley said, ‘I’m gonna stop him this time.’ And when you hear that and you look at the interviews, yeah, you wanna see, you’re expecting that. And then you see this fight, which was not an exciting fight.

“And it’s not a big deal, it happens to everybody, everybody can have a night off. I think there was way too much respect for each other and both guys didn’t do what they normally should have done. It’s a shame. But listen, Woodley’s got the win, he didn’t lose. Last time it was a draw. So whatever happens, he’s still got the W.

A highly respected coach, Rutten was asked what Nurmagomedov should do next after pulling out of UFC 209 in the early morning hours of weigh-in day, after suffering complications from the weight cut.

“If this is already the third time, it’s very hard for him to [cut to] 155,” said Bas. “I don’t think he should fight at 155. I mean you have to understand, Nurmagomedov, he’s a badass. If he decides to go to hospital, you can only imagine how bad it has to be at that moment, because this is not a guy who’s going to complain, ‘Oh I feel a little sick.’ I guess it was really scary, otherwise you don’t go to a hospital. So with that said, I don’t think he should fight at 155. Or, like what everybody else says, get a really good diet guy, dietician and then hopefully start cutting out way before, and then you can make it.

“But the UFC can put their foot down, they can say okay, well we’ll try it one more time because everybody wants to see the fight, but if you’re not going to make weight it’s over. It’s either stop at UFC or you gotta go to 170. But you can’t take that risk anymore because everybody, including me, was looking forward to seeing that fight.