Tomorrow night at 10 PM ET at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, live on Pay-Per-View, UFC 162 will try to fulfill all of our hopes and dreams for an action-packed event, culminating in what so many of us believe will be the fight of the year between UFC Middleweight Champion and pound-for-pound the best fighter in the world, Anderson Silva, and his No. 1 contender, Chris Weidman. But as Dana White already pointed out, “every fighter” that has been interviewed by the UFC’s own people believes that Weidman is going to win, so naturally people are talking to those fighters about why they think that and if there’s any flaw to their logic, right? Right??? RIGHT???????
Haha, nope. Everyone’s talking about superfights, and White spent Wednesday telling MMA Junkie that the reason we’re never going to see a superfight between Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre – you know, the fight he promised us – is because GSP simply doesn’t want it. If you hear a beeping noise, that’s just the UFC bus backing over GSP right now.
“There’s no doubt about it — that’s a fact (that St-Pierre doesn’t want the fight),” White told MMAjunkie.com on Thursday following the pre-event news conference for UFC 162. “If that was the case, he’d say, ‘(Expletive) Weidman. I’ll take that fight. I really think Weidman’s going to beat him, but I don’t want Weidman to beat him. I want to be the guy to beat him.’ ”
“I’ve been working hard to try to make those fights,” White said. “Georges St-Pierre would not even think about this fight because Anderson Silva’s going to (lose), according to Georges St-Pierre.” (Via USA Today)
Of course, if Weidman wins – just like every fighter says he will, according to White – then GSP looks smart for focusing on his own weight class and White and the UFC have a new champion and rivalry to promote next year. Hold on, could that have been the point? Is this just more wicked marketing from White?
“At the end of the day, he weighs 170 pounds,” White said. “Any guy who’s going to fight up in weight — ‘I’m the man here at 170. If I thought I was the man at 185, I’d be at 185.’ I get it. But it’s a fight a lot of fans want to see, it’s a big fight. It’s a legacy fight, and it’s a fight for the pound-for-pound best in the world.
“Georges St-Pierre could do this catch-weight fight and he could still be the champ at 170. But what’s crazy to me is, GSP opted to take a very dangerous fight (against Hendricks) at 170 without trying to take a dangerous fight at 185.”
See what he did there? By calling Silva/GSP a “dangerous fight” and Hendricks/St-Pierre a “very dangerous fight”? Oh Dana White, you are the kind of the shell game.
(GIF via)
