When UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley heard that former divisional king Georges St-Pierre was returning to the Octagon after a three-year absence, he probably thought he’d get the first crack at the Canadian superstar. To much surprise, GSP put the 170-pound division in the rear view and booked a meeting with current middleweight champion Michael Bisping for a bout sometime later this year. According to “The Chosen One,” St-Pierre’s decision to move up to 185 pounds is a hard one to agree with.
“He got away right before I got the chance to get my hands on him,” said Woodley during a recent interview with TMZ Sports (shown above). “And now you come back, and you don’t come back to your own weight class, man? I can’t really respect that.”
To GSP’s credit, he essentially cleaned out the welterweight division before walking away from the sport in 2013. Woodley, former champion Robbie Lawler, and current top contender Demian Maia are just about the only guys St-Pierre hasn’t fought, so it’s not like he’s trying to escape a division he didn’t already dominate.
While GSP has been riding the pine and getting himself ready for a gigantic return to the Octagon, Woodley has captured the 170-pound title with a knockout win over Lawler and defended it once in a rematch with Stephen Thompson this past March. If St-Pierre doesn’t decide to stay at middleweight and Woodley can defend the title once again this summer, the two welterweights may very well meet at the end of the 2017.
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