UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre
is ready to retire when he's considered the sport's pound-for-pound best.
is ready to retire when he's considered the sport's pound-for-pound best.Don't worry, though. On a special "Primetime" edition of MMAjunkie Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) this past Friday, St-Pierre said he's not quite there yet.
But the traditional reason for sticking around - fame and money - isn't his primary concern. Doing it his way is."People are going to be shocked," St-Pierre said of his tentative retirement plan.
St-Pierre (20-2 MMA, 15-2 UFC) currently is in Las Vegas wrapping up a coaching stint on "The Ultimate Fighter 12" opposite top contender Josh Koscheck (15-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC). The two are expected to meet sometime at the end of the year in a traditional season-ending fight between "TUF" coaches.
Beyond that, he's done some additional planning. In fact, St-Pierre said his potential retirement plan recently came about while he was setting goals for his remaining career.
"Growing up in my career, I always fix my goals very high," he said. "And every time I achieve one of my [goals], I fix another goal to reach. It's important as a martial artist [never to be] satisfied because otherwise there is no point to keep doing what you're doing."
As to what goals remain, there are a few. St-Pierre has achieved what he initially set out to do: become a professional fighter, become a UFC fighter, and finally, become a UFC champion.
Being considered the best overall fighter in the world? That's the one goal he thinks currently is unmet.
That doesn't mean he's complacent, of course. In his second run as welterweight champion, St-Pierre has taken on four consecutive contenders and soundly beaten them all. At the end of the year, he will attempt to tie former champion Matt Hughes' record of five consecutive title defenses when he meets Koscheck.
Still, some fans believe St-Pierre already has cleaned out his division. He's already beaten all the division's top contenders - Koscheck, Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves and Dan Hardy - and some point to a middleweight showdown against current champion Anderson Silva as a final hurdle to the pound-for-pound crown. Silva is still widely considered to be the holder of that unofficial title. St-Pierre knows he could snatch it away by beating him.
But St-Pierre said a move up in weight would likely come near the end of his career, and it won't come anytime soon.
"If I go up in weight, it's going to be hard to go down," he said. "If I put on lean muscle like I already did recently … it's going to be hard to come back down. So it's not like I go up and I go down. I have to be very careful with what I do."
Still, if St-Pierre takes "a couple" of welterweight fights in the next year or two, and if Silva is still the pound-for-pound king at that point, the French-Canadian then would consider moving up to fight him. And if he defeats Silva, that's a win worthy of retirement, he said.
"If one day I fight at 185 pounds for a superfight to know who is the best pound-for-pound in the world, (and) if I reach my goal, then my goal will be reached," St-Pierre said. "There will be no point for me to still compete because I'm not going to have a goal left."
St-Pierre also said he wants to secure his and his family's future before he takes the risk of moving up, though money and fame aren't the driving forces in his career.
"Of course, the money's there," he said. "The difference between me and a lot of fighters … (is that) a lot of fighters fight for the fame. They fight for the money.
"Yeah, the money is there. It's pleasant. The money is there. It's good that I have this security. I have a lot of money now. It's good. But there is a lot of things I can do outside of mixed martial arts … because of the name that I reached with MMA, that the UFC helped me to have.
"The fame is the same thing. I didn't have it in the beginning, and now I have it. But if one day I reach my goal of becoming the best pound-for-pound (fighter) of all-time, it will be time for me to retire. But I don't know right now, at 29 years old, if I want to retire. So it's better I have to stick around."
For more on "The Ultimate Fighter 12," stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.
MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino's Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by Gorgeous George, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Goze. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
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