Retired middleweight fighter Patrick Cote has trained with UFC Middleweight Champion Georges St. Pierre many times over their respective careers.
GSP just returned after a four-plus year absence at UFC 217 and Cote believes the new champion may be retiring instead of fighting again.
“I think I will not be surprised if (St-Pierre) said, ‘Okay, that’s over. I just wanted to feel that feeling again.’ And you know why I say that, is because it took him so much time to get out of the cage,” Cote said on The MMA Hour. “He was staying in the cage and he was kind of feeling everything he was able to grab about all the emotion. He was in the cage for almost 20 minutes after the fight, so he was looking away, looking at everything, and he looked like he was grabbing all the energy and just to say, ‘Alright, that was that, I did it. And now I’m not going to miss that anymore.’”
The newly crowned middleweight champion recently stated on a conference call that his future would be decided after taking a vacation. At the very least, the retired Cote believes that GSP’s time in the middleweight division has come to an end.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Bisping,” Cote said. “I like this guy, he’s a worker, he’s an amazing fighter — but I think that (Georges) had a great opportunity to become champion. But Georges against Whittaker, Georges against a big guy like Romero, stuff like that, I don’t know. Georges is a super athlete, but he doesn’t have anything to prove against those big guys, so I think he’s not going to fight at 185 anymore.”
If GSP were to retire or vacate the UFC Middleweight Title, then UFC Interim Middleweight Champion Robert Whittaker would become the undisputed champion.
