Eric Jamison/Associated Press
The opportunity to fight Kamaru Usman apparently isn’t enough to coax UFC legend Georges St-Pierre out of retirement.
St-Pierre told TMZ Sports “it’s better if I stay retired.”
The 39-year-old explained how he occasionally gets the itch to fight again and believes he could hold his own against the UFC’s current crop of stars. But those thoughts quickly fade when he evaluates the entire situation:
“But after I go home at night and I’m thinking about all [those] crazy thoughts, and I’m like, ‘I’m gonna be 40 years old soon. Do I really wanna go back and do a hardcore training camp of two months? Put myself in jail so to speak and get ready for hell?’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t.’
“I’ve done it for a very long time, and unfortunately there’s too many guys that retire too late, and I do not want to be one of these guys.”
Usman didn’t necessarily issue a challenge to St-Pierre but told TMZ Sports earlier this month he’d love to face off with the 2020 Hall of Fame inductee.
Usman is the current welterweight champion, having successfully defended the title against Jorge Masvidal at UFC 251.
St-Pierre is a two-time welterweight champ, and his second reign extended for more than five years. Pitting him against Usman would be a tantalizing possibility, albeit one that was a long shot even before his recent comments.
St-Pierre hasn’t fought since submitting Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in November 2017. He’s already considered one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in UFC history, so he’d have little to gain by returning to the Octagon.