GSP’s return may not be in Octagon
CONTRACT DISPUTE: Ever-popular St-Pierre confirms his lawyer has terminated agreement with the UFC E. Spencer Kyte
We were already in the midst of a very interesting time in the sport of mixed martial arts, what with the UFC sale, Conor McGregor calling his own shots and more and more fighters looking to fight out their contracts and find out what their services could command on the open market.
But things reached a new level of intrigue Monday when Georges St-Pierre revealed to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour that he was no longer under contract with the UFC.
“Right now, I’m a free agent,” the former UFC welterweight champion told Helwani, a fellow Montreal native. “You hear it right — I’m a free agent. My lawyer terminated the contract with the UFC.”
St-Pierre detailed how the situation reached this point and remained exceptionally professional about the entire situation throughout the interview. The 35-year-old, who last fought at UFC 167 on Nov. 16, 2013, didn’t burn any bridges or close any doors, saying he was unsure where he would end up next and refusing to say on multiple occasions this ordeal will mark the end of his professional relationship with the UFC.
In the moment, this sucks for fight fans, especially those planning to attend UFC 206 in Toronto in December, since that was the show St-Pierre had circled for his possible return and the event would certainly benefit from his addition. After years of speculation, St-Pierre seemed poised to return, but now it’s not going to happen. At least not in the UFC. At least not right now.
I’m not being vague just to spark rumours. It’s just there are bound to be some legal matters that need to be handled in the coming months in order for St-Pierre to truly hit the open market and potentially fight elsewhere.
Additionally, I just can’t fathom the new UFC ownership group — a collective headed by Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, the co-CEOs of William Morris Endeavor — seeing the reaction to this story and not recognizing they missed the boat on this one.
I get that you don’t lay out $4.2 billion to purchase the UFC and then instantly look to continue shelling out massive amounts of money right away, but when one of the most popular fighters and biggest pay-perview draws in the promotion’s history wants to come back, you’d think that you would find a way to make it work, even if it’s on a one-time basis so you can cash in on his comeback.
Instead, St-Pierre says the new ownership made him an unacceptable offer, said it would have to spend a lot of money to “reintroduce him to the new audience” — which is crazy talk, by the way — and allowed the deadline his lawyer put in place to pass without officially offering him a fight. And so he’s out. Which is bonkers to me. Even though I often argued against St-Pierre returning, I always thought that if he did come back, there would be no question that it would happen in the UFC. But now that doesn’t look like it is going to be the case.
As always, there are two sides to the story and the UFC probably will want to clarify or correct some of the things that St-Pierre said on Monday; the organization has yet to comment.
Maybe the contract terms St-Pierre and his team felt were “reasonable” were completely egregious. Maybe the fact that he is represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and has a lucrative sponsorship deal with Under Armour hampered negotiations with a promotion that has an apparel deal with Reebok and is operated by CAA’s chief competitors. Maybe the UFC just decided that a 35-year-old who was showing signs of decline when he last fought three years ago wasn’t a worthwhile investment at this point.
I look forward to having those questions answered in the very near future.
For now, I’m just going to sit back and see how this all plays out because to me this thing is only getting started and there will be lots more to discuss in the weeks and months ahead.
E. Spencer Kyte covers MMA for The Province. Follow him on social media: @spencerkyte.