UFC fans get wish, then complain
MMA community can’t agree on who they want to see him fight
Georges St-Pierre’s official return to the UFC is not yet a week old and the mixed martial arts community has already shifted into “here’s how it could suck” mode.
For the duration of the three years and change since he defeated Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 and announced he was going on sabbatical, fans and observers have longed for the long-reigning welterweight champion to announce his return.
Every interaction with the UFC has been covered in great detail and every time he shows his face in public, someone — or several someones — is there to ask him about when he’s going to step back into the Octagon.
When, not if, because the idea of a fighter exiting on top and never returning to the punishing sport that left him physically and mentally exhausted seemed unlikely from the beginning, and his comeback became more and more expected each time he talked about continuing to train, still being in shape and starting to get the itch again.
Plus, he was always clear that he was taking a break, not retiring, which always seemed like an indication St-Pierre expected to return, even if UFC president Dana White was convinced the French-Canadian superstar no longer had the mentality required to make that walk on fight night and step into the cage once more.
At the start of the year, when it was clear Conor McGregor was taking paternity leave (or planning to fight Floyd Mayweather), Ronda Rousey had just been dusted for a second time and Jon Jones was suspended until the summer, the consensus was the new UFC ownership group, headed by WME-IMG, had to get St-Pierre back in the fold.
Now that it’s happening — now that one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport is finally ending his hiatus and giving the UFC a marquee name to build a late-summer, early fall pay-per-view around — the grousing has begun.
You see, this is how it works in the MMA community: we do this thing where getting what we wanted isn’t enough.
We want to control every element and have every last detail fit within that tiny section of the Venn diagram, where all our wishes and dreams and demands and concerns overlap and, when things don’t fall into that small space, the masses get salty, MMA Twitter fills up with even more complaints, and something that should have been cool and enjoyable becomes exhausting.
It’s happening with St-Pierre’s return right now.
The euphoria of knowing “Rush” is going to return to action later this year has already worn off and been replaced by a list of fights the UFC better not make unless they want to piss everyone off and have a revolt … until fight night, because ain’t no way a bunch of diehard MMA fans aren’t shelling out $60 to see GSP face whomever the UFC matches him up against several months from now. Monday on The MMA Hour, St-Pierre’s longtime head coach, Firas Zahabi, told Ariel Helwani that he envisions his charge’s return being an “epic” affair before offering up two names: McGregor and Michael Bisping.
Neither makes sense given the depth of their respective divisions and the backlog of challengers queuing up to face each champ, but the UFC has never been a strict meritocracy. It made a series of “money-over-merit” choices in big spots last year and there are a handful of other obvious options that could be considered.
But McGregor and Bisping represent the most lucrative potential matchups available at this time, so the smart money is on St-Pierre facing one of them when he returns.
And that likelihood is already irritating the masses.
The same masses that criticize every lacklustre pay-per-view main event and lament the terrible buy rates those shows generate.
The same masses that often bemoan deserving contenders getting the title shots they’ve earned because they’re not big enough names.
The same masses that whine about the composition of almost every fight card and take aim at the UFC for failing to build stars.
The same masses that will never be happy with anything that happens in this sport, because that’s just the way it goes in mixed martial arts.
E. Spencer Kyte covers MMA for The Sun and The Province. Follow him on social media: @spencerkyte.