UFC president Dana White has refused to rule out a future showdown between Conor McGregor and Georges St. Pierre.
It comes after St-Pierre made a blockbuster return to the octagon Sunday by submitting former champion Michael Bisping in the UFC 217 main event.
The 36-year-old mixed martial arts icon has an uncertain future, despite admitting Saturday that his contract dictates that his next fight will be against interim middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.
The UFC has already announced Whittaker will likely headline UFC 221 in Australia in February — leading to speculation the Canadian superstar will dodge the fight in order to seek out a more lucrative fight against a UFC star with greater global pay-per-view appeal than the 26-year-old Aussie.
St-Pierre was unable to attend his post-fight press conference after UFC 217 because he needed to be treated in a hospital, but the Montreal megastar did his first interviews Thursday since stepping out of the UFC 217 octagon in Madison Square Garden.
While refusing to announce his intentions with Whittaker, GSP also played extremely coy when asked about a potential fight with McGregor.
“Everybody is asking me this question,” St-Pierre told MMA Fighting’s “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani.
“You’re not the only one. I always ask, ‘Why is everybody asking me this question?’ He’s competing in a different weight class to what I am.”
When asked if he’d consider fighting McGregor at the welterweight division mark of 170 pounds, St-Pierre savagely said he is above the idea of calling out a smaller opponent.
“As a fighter I don’t challenge guys who compete in smaller weight class divisions,” he said.
‘I think it makes you look bad. I don’t want to do this. I’m very happy for Conor. He raised the bar for all of us.”
St.-Pierre is the undisputed greatest fighter of all time in the 170-pound welterweight division, but took the huge step of making his return after a four-year absence from the octagon in a middleweight title fight against Bisping — and weighed in at 184.4 pounds.
McGregor fought at 170 pounds in his fights against bitter rival Nate Diaz and weighed in at 168 pounds for their re-match at UFC 202 in August last year.
White, however, has dismissed any chance of welterweight champion Tyron Woodley getting the next fight against GSP.
White has repeatedly said GSP’s next fight will be against Whittaker, but TMZ has reported the UFC is not ruling out McGregor.
“I never say never, but he weighs 185 pounds and Conor weighs 155 pounds,” White told TMZ Sports. “Conor would take any fight.”
McGregor is also yet to defend his lightweight title since his win over Eddie Alvarez in November, 2016, having taken a break from the sport to box Floyd Mayweather. All signs point to McGregor’s return being against Tony Ferguson.
St.-Pierre admitted to the “MMA Hour” that he had incredible difficulties in maintaining his 185-pound frame to compete in the middleweight class and confessed he didn’t like how the additional muscle mass impacted on his preparation.
“People don’t really know what happened. I was forcing myself to eat like crazy, like six times a day,” St-Pierre said.
“I was eating a specific diet to gain extra muscle mass. I was walking around about 197-198 pounds and when I came to New York to make the weight I was at 185. I made weight at 185. It’s like my body refuses to go back up to where it was before. It went back to 191 pound. The muscle memory of my body went back to my old weight. Maybe not my old weight because 191 is still bigger than what I was before, but I didn’t come back all the way up (after the weigh-ins). The night of the fight I was 192 (pounds). I was not 198 (pounds) where I wanted to be.
“The morning of the fight I tried to eat to put it all back and I threw up my breakfast.”
St-Pierre was asked directly on the show if he wants to travel to Australia to fight Whittaker — and again refused to give a direct answer.
“It’s written in my contract. Does it get me excited? I don’t know,” he said of the prospect of fighting Whittaker. “He’s an excellent fighter. He was in Montreal before and he is an incredible mixed martial artist. He’s a great champion. I have only positive things to say about Robert Whittaker.
“I can’t say it because there is a lot of force. There is a lot of things that can change. MMA is a sport that can change all the time and, like I said, I wanted to come back to make history. To do something that had never been done before. I know it’s in my contract, but you never know. Dana can come back with some proposition or whatever.”