Georges St-Pierre discloses eye injury preventing UFC return

The superfight between Georges St-Pierre and UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping is no more. UFC dismembered the matchup after GSP made it known that he wouldn’t be able to fight this summer, instead pinpointing a potential fight any time after October. Until now, the reason why GSP was pushing back his return fell within the realm of sheer speculation. The former UFC welterweight champion was able to shed light on the situation earlier today (Fri., May 26, 2017) during the C2 Montreal conference (transcription courtesy of MMA Fighting).

"Trust me, I'm not the kind of guy who thinks, 'Hey, I'm going to make everybody wait for me. I don't want to fight during the summer, I want to take my time ...'

"That's not the reason. If it were up to me, I would come back. The reason is I had a problem with my eye. I had an injury."

"My vision has not been back yet. It will be back. It's something very minor. The doctor insisted for me that I don't spar until September."

If GSP was unable to fight before November due to an eye injury then so be it. It was the way the fight was promoted and talked about in the media that may rub some fight fans the wrong way. But according to St-Pierre, UFC knew all about the situation leading up to the booking.

"The UFC was aware of it,” St-Pierre told interviewer Justin Kingsley. “They knew I couldn't fight during the summer, but they still insisted on doing that press conference with Michael Bisping. And when it happened, we were not very excited about the idea, but we wanted that fight, so we decided to do it, but then it turned into a negative thing because it took so long.

"But UFC knew. Everyone knew. The people concerned knew that that was the case, but they still tried to put pressure on me to fight in July. That's the reason why I'm coming out public today about the reason why I'm not fighting this summer."

This is really just becoming a big mess. Many people didn’t even want GSP jumping up a weight class and fighting for the 185-pound title in his return to the cage, let alone holding up an entire middleweight division in the process. At this point, no fight involving St-Pierre should be booked until the 36-year-old is completely healthy.