Posted in: MMA, Sports, TV | Tagged: bj penn, conor mcgregor, georges st. pierre, luke rockhold, michael bisping, randy couture, robert whittaker, ufc, ufc 221
Georges St-Pierre Forfeits UFC Middleweight Title, Future Up in the Air
Georges St-Pierre has relinquished the UFC Middleweight title. As reported on tonight by MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani, the fight at UFC 221 between Robert Whittaker and Luke Rockhold will now be for the undisputed title. St-Pierre informed the UFC of his decision a couple of days ago.
This all comes on the heels of Georges St-Pierre revealing that he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. He revealed the diagnosis in a Facebook post on December 2nd:
St-Pierre was fighting at middleweight for the first time in his storied career, fighting for the first time in four years and defeating then-champion Michael Bisping in a dramatic and thrilling finish that saw him choke-out the champ. He became only the forth man to capture UFC gold in two separate weight classes(Randy Couture, BJ Penn, and Conor McGregor being the others). That was back on November 4th.
It has since been revealed that in the weeks leading up to his fight that he had major issues bulking up to the 185 mark, force feeding himself and becoming sick often close to the fight. He had this to say about fighting at 185 again in an interview with TSN:
"We'll talk about it, but I'm not sure if I compete I will go back at 185. I don't think so," St-Pierre said in an interview with TSN. "Of course, in terms of weight, if I want to go back to compete at 185, obviously eating, like I did what I did, I learned from my mistakes. I don't think it's a good thing to do, force myself to eat to gain muscle mass. I've always been against performance-enhancing drugs, and I did it the natural way. There is no easy way. I did it the hard way and it was to gain weight and to maintain my muscles mass and it was very hard and it was not healthy."
For now his fighting future is in limbo. The middleweight division is back up for grabs. But a legend may well be done for good this time.