St-Pierre: UFC monopoly is hurting the sport
Georges St-Pierre: “…the fighters don’t have much power. They can’t really talk because if one says what he thinks, he will get punished.”
Georges St-Pierre was arguably the sport’s biggest star and recently announced a hiatus from fighting. The former UFC welterweight champion has been vocal lately, voicing his concerns over some of the issues facing fighters and the sport today. St-Pierre spoke to MMAFighting and explained how having the UFC as the only major organization is a hinderance to what he believes needs to be done to fix the sport:
“The only thing I want to say is, I wanted to do something to help those who are honest in the sport. Believe me or not, I never took drugs in my life. I’ll take a lie detector test, I don’t care. I’m for anti-doping tests. I think it’s a big problem in the sport.
“This is a relatively new sport. There’s one organization that has a monopoly, so the fighters don’t have much power. They can’t really talk because if one says what he thinks, he will get punished.
“If we want the sport to be accepted worldwide, like baseball, hockey, football, soccer, I believe [drug testing] is the thing to do. I think it’s just a matter of time before it happens, it’s just that I tried to make it happen now. Maybe they didn’t like the idea because if I did it now, it would lead to others doing it and maybe that’s not something they wanted to happen.
“It disappointed me. You know that there are things I can’t say. I’m holding back. I’m a public person.”