GSP: I could get to 155, but it is unhealthy
In this interview with MMA Nation’s MMA mastermind Luke Thomas, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre discusses the injury that sidelined…
In this interview with MMA Nation’s MMA mastermind Luke Thomas, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre discusses the injury that sidelined him from his original main event bout at UFC 137, physical therapy, whether he’d ever drop to 155 pounds, why BJ Penn has the edge over Nick Diaz, and more.
Luke Thomas: Give us just a brief assessment of what injury you suffered that made you pull out of this fight.
Georges St-Pierre: I sprained my MCL and then I took a week and everybody when it happened when I sprained my MCL, everybody said that I should pull out of the fight. I said, “No, no, no. I’m gonna wait a little bit.” See if, you know, you put so much into sacrifice and training camp, I don’t want to cancel after the first little obstacle but I tried to make it back 10 days after to train again and I was compensating with my other leg and I strained my hamstring so now I knew that both legs were hurt. I was like, “Ahh s—. I need to pull out.”
LT: So you’re in this weird position. I think some guys take UFC fights injured and not that they’re tougher than you but they have a lot less to lose. What’s the worst….
GSP: (interrupting) Hey, there is something I need to say. Injured like I was, like right now, I cannot do like lateral movement and I cannot grapple at all so nobody would take a fight to be injured like I am. There are some little bruise, little ‘this and that’ but an injury like I have, a sprained MCL and a strained hamstring, you cannot take a fight like this. That’s impossible. You go like this, you gonna get killed in a few minutes, in like one minute because you cannot move, you don’t have the ability, you don’t have the stability and the mobility that you need to have as an athlete and at this level you’ll get destroyed.
LT: You were originally scheduled to fight Nick Diaz, it was replaced with Carlos Condit as we said before, you’ll probably wind up facing him around February timeline and now it’s B.J. Penn – Nick Diaz so I’ll just ask you up front and then we’ll dig a little deeper but who do you like to win?
GSP I don’t know. I want the best guy to win, that’s what I want but who I think will win? I think maybe B.J. Penn is a notch better. Sometimes things doesn’t happen the way we expect and we’ll see what’s gonna happen. I don’t know who’s gonna win. I want the best guy to win.
LT: An interesting comment was made by your trainer Firas Zihabi, I think this week saying, “You know, listen, Georges is obviously rehabbing and we’ve got a title defense coming up, but in the future it’s getting easier for you to make weight because you’ve substituted gymnastics for weight lifting.” He even introduced the possibility of going to lightweight now I know you’re focused on rehab, you’re focused on your fight but is there any truth to the idea that you’re toying with the idea of a potential future in the lightweight division?
GSP: No, the thing is, people talk to me about changing weight class. For me, it would be easier to go down than to go up. The reason is my weight, I walk around between 185-190 but the thing is, I don’t want to go to lightweight because I don’t want to get smaller as a human being, as a man. I want to be bigger as possible, you know? I’m good as what I am as a welterweight right now. People want me to go up and we’ll see, one day if the timing is good and the person maybe I will but it will take time. Changing weight, it’s hard to do. People ask me this question sometime so we’ll see what’s gonna happen.
LT: So, I asked B.J. Penn and he said he would love to see you at lightweight and no chance at a third B.J. Penn – GSP fight at 155 pounds? That will never happen?
GSP: Oh my god, if it’s gonna be that, I don’t like the whole cut process now. I don’t like to play with my health. I could do it. I could do it, seriously, I could really do it but I don’t believe, I don’t want to lose too much weight. I don’t think it’s healthy and outside of performance, the most important thing for me is my well-being so I want my well-being to be my first priority and I don’t think it’s good for the body to lose that much weight.