Georges St-Pierre’s last title defense may have been one of the most one-sided main event championship matches in recent history, but at least Nick Diaz and GSP brought their premium trash-talking games into the week leading up to UFC 158. Of course, the bulk of credit for hyping that fight goes to Diaz, who made it seem like he and GSP were going to rip each other’s throats out over their pure hatred of each other. And of course we later found out that it was all a show to earn a little extra PPV coin. So did GSP and his newest opponent, Johny Hendricks, learn anything from that? No. Not at all.
Instead, all of the trash talk leading up to tomorrow night’s main event at UFC 167 is focused on two guys who think their opponent is juicing. Good times.
According to USA Today, it all started when GSP boasted of his willingness to go through a drug testing program administered by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency, while Hendricks didn’t bother.
“It worked for me because I said I’m a man of my word,” St-Pierre said. “I said I was going to do it, and I did it. I’ve been tested, so far, three times randomly. They can come any time right now. But Hendricks didn’t do it.”
Not really much of an accusation, I know, but Hendricks still fired back as if someone had slapped his mama. Someone make some popcorn.
“I’ve been clean my whole entire life. And all of a sudden, some dude doesn’t know me, (and) he’s been accused the last six years of being on something. He picks me and says I must be on something because I don’t want to follow the pony train to VADA. Get out of here.”
No, you get out of here, you silly man.
“[St-Pierre’s] face is all over the front page,” he said. “If me and you are going for a job interview, and this job is going to pay millions of dollars, and I say, ‘I’ve got somebody that’s going to drug test us,’ are you going to go to it?’ If you go to it, you’re a moron.
“The state athletic commission of Nevada said don’t do VADA. They said don’t do VADA. Are you going to trust your opponent, or are you going to trust the Nevada state commission, (who) doesn’t care?”
We care! We care!
“I’m not going to lay my life into his hands,” Hendricks said. “I said WADA. WADA is so much tougher to pass, and they don’t do just random drug tests where he randomly gives drug tests the first time cameras are around. No. WADA, you have to have your schedule for three to four months, and they know exactly where you’re at, and if you don’t show up within an hour of when they call you, you fail. Then, you’ve got to give them a three-day notice before any changes. So that’s so much harder to pass, and they test for stuff that VADA doesn’t.”
WADA? VADA? What is this, a conversation between Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza? Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
“If he needs that to beat me, I got beat by the drug,” he said. “I don’t need drugs to win. I’ve proven that. If I can’t be champ without them, I’ll never revert to drugs to be champ.”
I wish Hendricks would come to the octagon wearing a D.A.R.E. shirt.
Obviously, fans of the champ are calling this how they see it – Hendricks is just laying some pillows on the ground for his eventual fall – while those on Big Rig’s side think that he’s just preaching to the choir. Hopefully this will all be rolled over into the octagon and Hendricks will put up a better fight than Diaz at UFC 158, because I don’t want to fall asleep in the second round again.
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