Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre, recently said that he was "surprised" by the revelation that Anderson Silva had tested positive for steroids for his bout against Nick Diaz, which went down at UFC 183 on Jan. 31, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Still, "Rush" isn't going to kick a man when he's down and says that the unfortunate incident isn't going to change his views that Silva is still the best pound-for-pound fighter in all of mixed martial arts (MMA). This, despite the fact that Georges is one of the more vocal people when it comes to speaking out against performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Check out what he had to say during his recent appearance on on The MMA Hour:
"It's really unfortunate. I feel bad for everything, even Anderson. I don't elevate myself when people are getting dragged down with something like this. That's not what I want. People think I'm happy, no, I am not. No one should be happy about this. It's sad and unfortunate. For me, it doesn't change the fact that Anderson is still the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. It's just unfortunate for his reputation and his health."
According to Georges, shortly after Silva's win over Diaz -- which has since been overturned to a "no contest" -- UFC president Dana White offered him a fight against "The Spider." But, as the former 170-pound champion says, it simply isn't the time to accept such a huge fight.
He explains:
"He told me to fight in Montreal and he also texted me to see if I was interested in fighting Anderson Silva right before the thing (drug test results) came out. I said no. And my answer was negative. Then the whole thing came up and it was bad. A fight versus Anderson wouldn't interest me, Ed Soares said something in the media and then it make people talk. I never say never, but now is not the time for me. I am not interested right now. The way everything go, I'm not interested right now. I am busy with other things, too. I took a break and I now I am very happy. People talk bad about athletic commission, it's not where it needs to be, but they made a lot of progress. They're attempting to clean up the sport, it needs a lot of improvement and right now it is not where I believe it should be."
When asked to share his thoughts on why pre-fight drug tests results aren't revealed until after fight night, as was the case with Silva, "GSP" didn't bite his tongue.
"Money runs the world. Imagine, the time, the promotion and how much money, if anything would have been discovered before then, you know. I don't know, people know, they are not stupid. I am sure there is a way they can deal with this to make the situation better."
So how does the string of failed drug tests in MMA affect St-Pierre's chances of returning to the Octagon? Negatively, I'm afraid, as "GSP" says he is no hurry to return to fighting since the sport shows no sings of being clean.
"It's not Anderson or anybody that I want to talk about. I knew, I am not surprised to hear that a lot of guys got busted. There is going to be another name coming up. That's what you guys don't understand. If they keep doing the right testing. I am not a rat, I won't say any names; I just wanted to change the system. It shows now that we got a big problem and they need to do something. My desire is to do a real anti-doping tests by an independent and competent and fair competitor. I don't wish that nobody got caught with performance enhancing drugs, I wish people just don't do this. People that don't do it are afraid to get cut if they lose so they don't. That cleans it up a little. There is a lot to be cleaned up. This is only the beginning. I'm not going to lie, I am busy with other projects and for sure I watch the big UFC fights sometimes. The more I watch fights the more I feel the itch. I took time from competition because I was burnt out with all the pressure and all the expectation and everything. I needed to find a way out to keep my mental stability. The more time that goes by, I feel the itch more. Now, with my surgery my knee feels almost 100 percent and I'm even able to perform some movement that I wasn't able to do before, so I made a progression in that department. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I am not saying I am making a comeback, but I am not interested to compete if the sport is not clean, that is one of my major concerns."
There you have it, Maniacs, maybe all of those rumors of an eventual St-Pierre return will finally die down.
To be fair, UFC, as well as some athletic commissions, have ramped up their fight against PEDs with more stringent testing. Hence the results of all the positive returns. Still, it's not good enough for St-Pierre, as he wants the sport to be completely clean.
But, that's not up to Dana White and Co., but rather St-Pierre's former colleagues to clean up their act.