With former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre claiming the middleweight crown with a third-round submission win over Michael Bisping, there is a possibility the UFC could look to book McGregor vs. St-Pierre at 170 pounds (or less).
The idea of having two of the biggest pay-per-view draws in UFC history meet inside the octagon is not as far-fetched as it may sound. When St-Pierre announced he was going to end his four-year hiatus from MMA, there was some speculation he would face McGregor in his return bout.
Instead, the UFC booked St-Pierre vs. Bisping. However, talk of he and McGregor meeting never truly died. In fact, McGregor himself addressed the possibility of the fight in late September.
“It’s another money fight, even though he’s been retired,” McGregor told Caroline Pearce at An Evening with Conor McGregor (via MMAFighting). “I don’t know, I think he’s going to get his (expletive) whooped by Bisping. To be honest, I think it’s a mistake for him to step in at that weight after so long out.”
UFC President Dana White also speculated on that fight before St-Pierre defeated Bisping.
“GSP would need to defend his title first at 185 (pounds) and Conor has some business to handle himself,” White told TSN (via MMAWeekly) in October. “It would be a year and a half down the road before we would even talk about that."“Everybody's intriguing for Conor McGregor. I mean, if you look at Conor McGregor at 145, 155 and 170 [pounds], everything is intriguing.”
“I don’t know where that would be,” White said. “We could do it in Croke Park in Ireland, where there’s like 100,000seats. You could do it here in Toronto, where we had56,000 people, and you could do it in Vegas, which is always good, too.”
As for St-Pierre, in October he told ESPN that he didn’t want to callout a smaller fighter. However, the surefire UFC Hall of Famer did not dismiss the possibility.
“He’s an amazing fighter and it would be an amazing honor,” St-Pierre said. “I don’t know what to say. If the fans want it and he wants and whoever wants it, maybe it will happen.”
After St-Pierre’s win over Bisping, White said St-Pierre will fight interim middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in a title unification bout.
However, St-Pierre didn’t sound like he was so sure about another middleweight bout.
“This is not really my real weight,” St-Pierre told UFC commentator Joe Rogan. “I did it for the challenge. There was a time in my career where the challengers were one after another and I was too small to go up. I was even small for a welterweight. Now I’m still welterweight size.”The main reason this fight could come to fruition sooner rather than later is economics. Right now there is no bigger fight to be made in the UFC.
Of the top 50 UFC pay-per-view events, St-Pierre fought in the headline bout in 10 and in the co-main event in one. If White is correct in his assessment and UFC 217 does break the one million PPV buy mark, St-Pierre will add a 12th fight to his number of top 50 events and he just might break the 10 million mark in career PPV buys (if you include his co-main event spot at UFC 100). He stood at an estimated 8.7 million before UFC 217 according to Tapology.
As for McGregor, all five of the PPV cards he has headlined are in the top 25 in PPV buys. McGregor owns the first, second, third and fourth biggest PPV numbers in UFC history. All told, he has generated 6.2 million in PPV sales for the promotion.
If the two do meet there won’t be an official title on the line, but it’s very likely the event will surpass the 1.6 million buys McGregor and Nate Diaz generated in their rematch at UFC 202. It’s also not out of the question that a fight card with St-Pierre and McGregor in the headline spot could break both the gate and attendance records for a UFC event if it were held in a large enough stadium or arena.
As of now, UFC 205 holds the record for largest gate in UFC history at $17.7 million. The highest attendance for a UFC event belongs to UFC 193. That event, held at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia drew 56,214 fans.Irish superstar returns to the UFC fold.
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