It was only a few days ago UFC President Dana White spoke of how the “ship had sailed” in regards to a potential middleweight title bout between champion Michael Bisping and former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. Days later, White was made to eat his words at the UFC 214 post-fight press conference.
“That ship f*cking turned around and sailed back,” said White, speaking to the media after Jon Jones recaptured the UFC light-heavyweight title, capping off a big UFC 214 pay-per-view. The bout had originally been announced earlier this year however it was then pulled after Bisping suffered a knee injury. Ariel Helwani has since reported that the bout has been agreed for Nov. 4 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
After Saturday’s UFC 214 card White revealed that the crowd’s reaction during the co-main event did, in fact, play a part in his decision to reschedule the bout between Bisping and GSP instead of putting the Canadian legend against welterweight champion Tyron Woodley. Throughout the welterweight title bout fans seemed all but thrilled with the entertainment waving around their lit up phones and even producing a Mexican wave to pass the time.
“Listen, when you break a record for the least number of punches thrown in a five-round fight, when you beat it and it was like 130 and these guys threw 60 or something like that, that sums it up,” White said. Fans also resulted to chanting of “this is boring” during the five-round bout.
“If you get booed out of the arena, that’s not good,” White added. “That’s not how you make your money. If people don’t want to watch you, that’s a bad sign.”
Woodley; who labels himself as the greatest welterweight of all-time, believes that GSP should mark his return to the sport by trying to reclaim his welterweight gold in a bout with himself.
Despite White’s comments on Wednesday about a potential bout with GSP, Woodley remained skeptical on the matter. He then reiterated these thoughts in his post-fight press conference reminding the media of his comments earlier in the week.
“Did you hear my reply at the press conference when he said I was going to fight the GSP-Bisping winner if I won? I said, these guys are already talking about fighting [each other],” Woodley said.
Since defeating at the time champion Robbie Lawler in July of 2016, “The Chosen One” has now defended his belt three times each time against the number one contender; twice against Stephen Thompson and now Demian Maia.
Speaking at the post-fight press conference the welterweight champion opened up of his belief that had he lost his title to either Thompson or Maia, Georges St-Pierre would be making his return to the division already. “[GSP] doesn’t want to fight me, because I’m a better version of him,” Woodley said.
