Bisping: Georges St-Pierre may have delayed UFC title fight to clear his system of steroids

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion Michael Bisping has been trying to finagle a Georges St-Pierre title fight as far back as January of this year, and will finally get his wish 11 months later at UFC 217.

What took so long?

According to “The Count,” the former welterweight titleholder may have needed that extra time to flush his system of performance-enhancing dugs (PEDs), to avoid a messy situation (like this one) with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

From Bisping’s official podcast (via MMA Fighting):

“I don’t know whether it’s because Georges needs to clear the steroids out of his system before he enters the USADA testing pool. I don’t know what the reason is but that is definitely a potentially valid reason because you’ve got to get tested for six months before you come back and he did his best to delay it so maybe that was why. I’ve been tested twice in this training camp, and I guess they’re gonna give up because they never get a sniff of anything with me. Never. And it costs a lot of money to send those agents out here. I’ll probably get another busy talk to throughout the training camp [but] I want to know how many times are they testing Georges St-Pierre?”

I guess St-Pierre ignored this advice.

Barring a special exemption (like this one), athletes returning from retirement must first complete a six-month period of negative drug testing. Though to be fair, Bisping also had his fair share of delays (example), which may have been to avoid this.

Perhaps “The Count” has been reading the Nick Diaz playbook.

The upcoming UFC 217 pay-per-view (PPV) event takes place Sat., Nov. 4, 2017 inside Madison Square Garden in New York City, with preliminary bouts on FOX Sports 1 and the UFC Fight Pass digital network.

For the current UFC 217 fight card and line up click here.