Former UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre has announced that he has left the UFC & is now officially a free agent.
“Right now, I’m a free agent,” GSP told MMAFighting.com. “You hear it right, I’m a free agent. My lawyer terminated the contract with the UFC.”
GSP has been in negotiations to return to the fight game since this past February. He had taken a sabbatical from the promotion back in 2013 after he had concerns about his contract.
UFC signed an exclusive merchandising deal with Reebok, which required all UFC contracted fighters to wear specific Reebok fight kit’s to The Octagon. Before this deal, fighters were able to make money with various sponsors & promote them cage side before, during & after the fight.
There was a major problem with this from the GSP camp. GSP has a major sponsorship deal with Under Armour. And with the new sponsorship deal for all contracted UFC fighters, Georges was no longer permitted to wear the Under Armour logos on his fight shorts, t-shirts, banners or any other swag that he could get to the cage.
“To make a long story short, last February I told Lorenzo (Fertitta) that I wanted to fight again. We had a meeting in Las Vegas & I came with my agent and I told him that I wanted to fight again. Since February, my team was in negotiations with Lorenzo and many names were offered at UFC 200, New York, but we thought the best date was the Toronto date. So that’s one of the main reasons I entered the USADA testing, to have my four months prior testing.”
Unfortunately for St. Pierre, when the UFC was sold to WME-IMG, the deal fell apart. The UFC finally offered GSP a fight with another former Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler, but that can’t happen due to Lawler taking time off from fighting due to the knockout suffered a few months ago at the hands of Tyron Woodley.
GSP went on to state that he has no ill will towards the UFC, Dana White or anyone else involved with the promotion.
“I don’t dislike the UFC. The UFC does what is in the best of their interest,” GSP stated. “Dana White, he’s the best promoter in the world. He is the greatest of all time. We wouldn’t make mixed martial arts for a living if it would not be for Dana White. We owe that to Dana White. He did that for all of us. He took the UFC when it was small and he took it and he raised the bar for everyone of us. But now in this situation, unfortunately, he’s against me because of the business interests. I don’t dislike Dana White. Because a big part of what I do and what I have earned is because of Dana White.”
We will follow the news of what GSP may do in the future now that he is free of his UFC contract. There aren’t as many options in MMA as their once was. However, GSP would bring instant credibility to any promotion that would bring him in.
GSP’s last fight was a victory against Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 in a split decision. He took a sabbatical from the promotion as UFC Welterweight Champion and never lost the title. His current MMA record is an impressive 25 wins and only 2 losses.