Georges St-Pierre says the UFC did approach him to face Anderson Silva in a superfight, but it never went beyond that lone conversation.
“What happened is that, at the time and when I was in my prime and Anderson Silva was in the prime… I can only speak from my side,” St-Pierre told Demetrious Johnson. “I don’t know what was happening on Anderson Silva’s side.
“I was only asked once by Dana and Lorenzo… and I had the request because I was like, OK, you want me to get out of my way to go up a weight class, I need to be compensated because it’s different. I’m full of challenges in my weight class, so if I’m fighting someone bigger I need to change my training, try to get bigger, maybe.”
St-Pierre and Silva are the consensus greatest of all-time fighters in the welterweight and middleweight divisions, respectively, and the most accomplished champions the divisions have ever seen. After both fighters went on dominant runs, it was one of the few times fans clamored for two champions to face each other in a dream matchup.
“Rush” says that when the UFC asked him about the fight by Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, he had a few requests he needed to be agreed upon in order for the fight to happen.
“So my request was to fight Anderson Silva, I want to be put under contract,” St-Pierre explained. “I want to be compensated better, one. I wanted this to be done in a catchweight, because Anderson fought in PRIDE at 170, and I knew he could go down — I don’t know if he could’ve gone down in that moment… it seems like he got heavier as time goes by, so I don’t know. It’s only an impression.
“So it would be at a catchweight, so after that I could [go back down]. … If I go up, I needed to go back down because I wouldn’t spend my career there. And the third one was I wanted to have drug testing implemented. And they never got back to me.”
St-Pierre believes all of those requests we’re on the up and up, and nothing was extreme in any way at the time — including the compensation, as he doesn’t think what he asked for would ever be perceived as a pricing out.
“That was my intention: ‘If you make that happen, I’m in, no problem,’” St-Pierre said. “If you made it 180 [pound] catchweight, I’m in. And if you compensate me, and it was reasonable… and also the drug testing. But they didn’t follow up with that.
“I don’t know if they asked Anderson about that, but they only asked me once.”
