Remember when the UFC were coming to Croke Park? Yeah, we really need to start taking everything Dana White says with a grain of salt.
The UFC president made a tall claim on ESPN recently that Conor McGregor moving up to take a superfight as champion is something that the great Georges St-Pierre would never do.
White went as far to say that GSP would “never move up to 185 to face Anderson Silva,” who had been a long reigning middleweight champion while Rush sat on the welterweight throne. However, the good people at Bloody Elbow have dug up an old quote from El Presidente from 2011 which directly contradicts his claim.
At a Q&A in a Texas military post in January of that year, White announced that St-Pierre would be interested in fighting Silva at middleweight and that the fight may take place later that year.
“If (Silva) wins that fight (against Vitor Belfort at UFC 126), then Georges St-Pierre needs to beat Jake Shields in Toronto (at UFC 129). If that happens, then we’re probably going to do that fight (between St-Pierre and Silva). If they both win, that fight makes all the sense in the world.”
“Georges St-Pierre said he would move to 185 (to fight Silva) and stay at that weight and not go back to 170,” White said. “Should (they) win (their next) fights, that fight will probably happen this year.”
Saying that, the superfight never happened and GSP was only willing to move up one weight division, not two like McGregor did for his clash against Nate Diaz at UFC 196.
