Georges St. Pierre returned from a four-plus year hiatus to defeat Michael Bisping to win the UFC Middleweight Title in the main event of UFC 217.
Kenny Florian is a retired UFC fighter and he says he wouldn’t be shocked if GSP retires himself after winning the middleweight strap.
“I think for Georges, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his last fight. Does it get any better than this? What is he going to accomplish here that’s going to elevate his status that much more? Does he need to defeat the 205-pound champion, maybe fight Stipe Miocic? Those aren’t realistic things. Even going up to 186, everybody doubted him. ‘This is going to be too much. Michael Bisping has been more active, he’s a bigger guy.’ I don’t know if it gets better than this. I think there was something that Georges wanted to prove to himself. I really don’t think, as much as Georges wanted to get what he felt he deserved, but I don’t think it was necessarily about the money. This wasn’t a Georges St-Pierre saying ‘Man, my bank account is low. I really need to get some funds here.’ It wasn’t about that. Georges is fine on money. I think more than anything else, he had something he needed to prove to himself. Being away for four years, I felt like he finished his career on top and wanted to come back and show everybody that in these days where USADA is kind of overlooking the sport, I want to come back and show what I can really do. At 170 pounds, he has already done it all. He wanted to do something different at 185 pounds and challenge himself. He did that against a phenomenal champion in Michael Bisping and I think that this is probably his last fight,” Florian said on the Anik & Florian Podcast.
The new UFC Middleweight Champion hasn’t announced any of his future plans as of yet, although UFC President Dana White said his next fight would be a title unification bout against UFC Interim Middleweight Champion Robert Whittaker.
If GSP were to fight Whittaker, the retired Florian believes that the Canadian superstar would walk away victorious.
“Can he fight? Absolutely. He proved it. This is still a Georges St-Pierre who can do it all and do it all a very high level. He’s one of the best competitors I’ve seen in all of professional sports and if he wants to continue to fight, I think he can beat a Robert Whittaker,” says Florian.
Whittaker recently stated after UFC 217 that GSP looked slow in the Octagon and he would be willing to wait for a fight with the new champion.
