Once upon a time, a clash between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Georges St-Pierre would have been the biggest in the sport of MMA. When Khabib joined GSP in retirement after demolishing Justin Gaethje, rumors of an all-retiree superfight hit an all-time high. St-Pierre recently revealed the lengths to which UFC president Dana White was willing to go in order to coax Khabib and GSP back into the game, including allegedly lying to Georges St-Pierre about Khabib’s involvement.
“What happened now — because Khabib is retired and I’m retired — so now, the UFC, Dana called me and he’s like, ‘Oh, now would you be interested to fight Khabib?’ He asked me. He called me.
GSP: Dana White “Lied” About Khabib Fight
But I thought it was strange because I never wanted to do it. And now, because he called me for that reason, I was like, I didn’t want to do it, but I told Dana, just to see what happens because I was curious. You know it’s always a chess game when the promoter calls you.
I didn’t say no, I said, ‘OK. Let me think about it.’ The way Dana talked to me, it was like Khabib already accepted. But it wasn’t true. It was just fishing to make the fight happen. They knew now that we were both retired, so now, for them, it was an opportunity to make a big-money fight.”
There was huge money on the line, with Khabib’s dominant reign in recent history. The fight never came to fruition, likely due to the promise Khabib made to his mother, which was never to fight without his father in the corner. Khabib lost his father to COVID-19 ahead of the Gaethje fight, and has since kept his word, focusing more on his own fight promotion, Eagle FC.
As for the superfight, the former two-division champ put it simply. “So I said I’m gonna think about it and I wait a few days and I saw in the media that Ali Abdelaziz came out publicly and said ‘Hey, now Georges wants to fight, but now we already retired…’ It was all BS.
Dana kind of lied to me. They didn’t approach Khabib first, they approached me first to make it happen. I know now for a fact (that Dana lied to me). A hundred percent.
Dana, now, could’ve gotten back to the media and said, ‘Oh, why would I let Georges go fight in boxing when he doesn’t want to fight Khabib with the UFC?’ So he would’ve had a good reason.
That’s why he did this. It was a strategic move on his part. It’s always like this with Dana.” What do you think of Dana White’s “chess game” with GSP and Khabib? Let us know in the comments.
