By Elias Cepeda

(“I am not im-pressed wit my lack of title de-fense.”)

It’s time to strip Georges St. Pierre of his UFC welterweight championship.

Ok, perhaps not at this very moment, but come May 1, it will have been over a year since the UFC champ has defended his 170lb strap. St. Pierre hasn’t run from challenges or fights, he’s just had several consecutive knee injuries (the most recent one, a torn ACL that required surgery to repair) that have forced him to pull out of scheduled belt defenses.

Carlos Condit just won a razor-thin interim title bout against Nick Diaz at UFC 143, but would have to wait until the new year is almost over before being able to fight GSP. The Canadian says he won’t be ready to fight again until November. Unfortunately, we’ve seen these situations in the UFC before and a standard has emerged of champions needing to defend their titles at least once a year. In 2004, UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir was in a motorcycle accident that put him on the shelf. Initially, when it was unknown if and when he would return, an interim title was created and was won by Andrei Arlovski. When it was clear that Mir would go longer than a year without defending his belt, the interim champ was made the “full” champ. It wasn’t about punishing Mir, it was simply about letting the division continue, with significant matchups made and fights promoted well.

Even GSP seems to agree that he shouldn’t be considered the UFC champion while going so long without defending the gold. “The way I see it, I am not the champion anymore on Saturday night. I have not fought since April, against my will, but I understand the champion must fight. You have to put the belt on the line in order to call yourself champion, the best in the world. Right now I am not the best in the world, I am injured,” he told UFC.com shortly before UFC 143.

(Props: "ultimate tapout")

(Props: This set on Combat Lifestyle)

Not to alarm any of you Georges St. Pierre fans, but Rush has been looking rather lumpy lately. Though he’s made no mention of it in the run up to his UFC 100 fight against Thiago Alves, GSP has been walking around with a cartoonishly swollen elbow — possibly due to bursitis, an inflammation caused by repetitive movement and trauma that may have previously played a role in Marcus Davis’s loss to Mike Swick. Will the injury slow down the welterweight champ, or will GSP use that nasty thing as a club to bash Alves’s teeth down his throat?

(“First off, I’d like to thank my brother, Thor, for if he hadn’t transmitted the power of his hammer into my left hand, none of this would have been possible.” Photo courtesy of Getty Images.) 

The UFC has never been an organization that takes pride in its subtlety. The same can be said about Dana White. So when they forced one of their cameramen to spend the entirety of the incredible GSP/Condit fight shooting Anderson Silva’s reactions (and Lyoto’s pedostache), you’d have to be pretty thick-skulled to not realize what they were angling at. However, GSP’s hesitance to commit to the fight, combined with Johny Hendricks’s brutal declaration of #1 contendership, have seemingly put a halt on these superfight rumors, if only temporarily.

In either case, we figured we would dedicate one post as the official battlegrounds for this debate, with you, the most distinguished and intelligent audience an MMA blog could ever ask for. So join us after the jump to vote on the poll that dares to ask: Who should Georges St. Pierre fight next now that he has successfully put the kibosh on this whole interim champ/actual champ nonsense? After you’ve finished voting, make your case in the comments section, using as much profane language, personal attacks, and outright trolling attempts as possible. Seriously, we kind of miss that stuff, so don’t get soft on us Taters.

(Props: afflictionvideos)

You know, just once I’d like to be referred to as "God" by a long line of hot chicks. Anyway, here’s Georges St. Pierre signing some of his new 2010 calendars last weekend at the Affliction store at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. To quote Todd Duffee, the ladies want to romance him, and the boys want to bromance him. This video is particularly worth watching because it reveals Tom Atencio’s new role at Affliction — awkwardly stumbling through interviews with UFC stars. (It’s cool, because he says he’s drunk!) Later, Randy Couture shows up to tell Tom about his upcoming "Advil and Viagra" fight with Mark Coleman. Semi-related: According to Randy, reports of GSP’s Olympic wrestling bid have been blown way out of proportion.

Bonus, after the jump: The badass new trailer for Spike’s Best of PRIDE.

(Photo courtesy of NationalPost.)

From Georges St. Pierre‘s latest blog entry for Yardbarker.com:

First I want to thank everybody for their get well wishes — I feel way better right now than I felt when I came back from L.A. It took me 3 days to recuperate and get back 100%. I didn’t take any medication — I just slept better and trained to sweat it out. After I felt better, I went to New York to see my trainer Phil Nurse and train with 4 of his students who had an upcoming fight at The Wat — Brett, Sean, Nicholas & Stan. It seems to me that every time I go to New York, those guys get better & better all the time. I also saw my old friends Eric Owing & Andre Gusmao — we went to dinner and then out together for a great night.

Then I came back in Montreal with new tricks and more tools than I had before I went to New York. It’s very important for me to help my friends and training partners when they need it because they were there for me when I prepare for my fights. When I came back to Montreal, I kept training with Patrick Cote & Denis Kang, who are both fighting on October 25th. Kang is fighting in Calgary, and Patrick Cote is fighting Anderson Silva for the UFC World Middleweight Championship. Patrick looks better than I have ever seen — even though the odds are not in his favor, I would not be surprised to see him shock the world. It would be great to have world champions in Quebec!

Georges Laraque, one of my friends who also plays for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, gave me two tickets to go see their game Saturday night. Even though it was an off-season game, it was very fun and then after I went to see EliteXC at a friend’s house.

Gina did a nice performance and I’m glad for her because she also represents the sport very well. The main event was obviously a tough situation because Ken had to pull out because of a cut…and I have a lot of respect for Seth & Kimbo to still go out and put on the fight for the fans.

To see what GSP has to say about his latest deal with CAA Sports, training at Team Jackson, and his mentor Krystoff Midoux, read the rest of this post here.

…so said Silva’s manager Ed Soares, when asked by ProMMARadio about a potential Georges St. Pierre/Anderson Silva superfight:

“That sounds great, I think GSP is an incredible fighter. But I think GSP needs to prove himself. He still hasn’t had a successful title defense (at 170 lbs.). I don’t really feel that he deserves (a Silva fight) yet. Go defend your title a few times and then we’ll talk.”

The thing is, St. Pierre has proven himself many times over to be an elite-level fighter, and Soares is veering uncomfortably close to Juanito Ibarra territory, wild statement-wise. But what makes his dismissal of GSP particularly ironic is that Spider’s next fight is likely going to be against Patrick Cote, who doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as Silva or GSP. With Yushin Okami suffering a broken hand, Cote is really and truly next in line for a title shot; that little shitshow could happen at UFC 88 (September 6th, Atlanta).

A relatively one-dimensional striker, Cote doesn’t bring any more to the table than James Irvin did, and their bout will almost certainly be another brief exhibition for Silva. The silver lining is that with this belt-defense obligation out of the way quickly, Silva will be free to “test the waters” at light-heavyweight again — and he does plan on fighting at least one more time before the end of the year.

Sort of related: “UFC Silva vs. Irvin” was a ratings smash. The broadcast averaged 3.1 million viewers, peaked at 3.8 million viewers, and according to SpikeTV, beat all basic cable and broadcast networks in that timeslot for the “males 18-49″ and “males/females 18-34″ demographics.

For us, it really comes down to which goofy accent you find less annoying:

(Scene from The Pink Panther)

Or…

(Scene from Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story)

We hope that helps. Let us know in the comments, or by taking our new poll. WAR hilarious regional dialects!

He wouldn’t be the first one to be a champion in more than one division. But three? That would put Georges St. Pierre, the UFC’s interim welterweight champ, into a completely different sphere. And he wants to do so after completely dominating the welterweight division, according to an article over at Sherdog. GSP has been around the sport since 2002 and has been more than impressive against the dudes he’s beaten.

The piece references GSP’s win over Pete Spratt in 2003 as the beginning of the welterweight’s climb. This got him into the UFC, where – after two wins – he lost his first fight, a submission to Matt Hughes. We’ve since heard Georges explain – several times – that he had already lost in his mind before the fight even started. Maybe he should have listened to his opponent’s advice. Regardless, St. Pierre won their second (and third) meeting, only to immediately lose the belt to Matt Serra – who he will meet again in April.

GSP is in the Centennial State right now working with Nathan Marquardt to help the fighter train for his fight with Jeremy Horn at UFC 81. After kicking the shit out of Matt Hughes, St. Pierre remains a little too humble:

“Hughes is an amazing fighter,” he said. “I just had a good night that night, and he had a bad night.”

“If we fight again, I don’t think he’s going to beat me, but he will probably come closer. Maybe he had a bad day — it’s a matter of circumstances as well.”

Oh please. Just admit you kicked his ass and would do it again and again.

(Well sure, compared to Guy On The Right, *everybody* looks like a lightweight.)

by Sal DeRose

With the news that Georges St-Pierre could (and is better suited to) drop to 155 pounds and further make the UFC’s lightweight division even more stacked, it gave fans more doubt that a mega fight with Anderson Silva will ever come to fruition.

So if GSP were to drop to lightweight, here are five fights for him to take to get him adjusted to the lightweight waters…

Visit BleacherReport.com to check out GSP’s potential lightweight hit-list.

(Eat your heart out, fatty.)

If you’ve never heard the story of how Georges St-Pierre began taking karate to help him defend himself against the incessant bullying he endured as a child growing up in St. Isadore, Quebec, Yahoo!Sports has the backstory:

“I had a rough childhood, big problems. I didn’t have many friends growing up. I’m from a small town. I was an intellectual person. People who were friends with me were intellectuals, they were not popular either. They weren’t the hockey player that everyone wanted to be like,” he recalls. “I had an acne problem. I was just not dressing very well. I was not very popular with girls. I just wasn’t a popular guy. [Being bullied every day creates] a very hostile environment. You’re not going to school to learn, you’re going to school to survive. You’re really scared. You hate school because [afterward] you’re getting beat up. You don’t think about what the teacher is telling you, you’re thinking about running away when you hear the ringing of the bell. You need to get your books and get out of class and get to the bus before the kids catch you.”

(Please, Rampage. Your fist-pose means nothing here.)

For those of you who like to plan ahead in your MMA gambling, listen up: Several betting sites are already offering odds on Rashad Evans vs. Rampage Jackson at UFC 130 — a match that is completely unconfirmed at this point — and the purely hypothetical superfight between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre, which would depend on a GSP victory over Jake Shields. The most favororable odds right now are…

Rashad Evans (-185) vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (+155)
Anderson Silva (-170) vs. Georges St. Pierre (+155)

(OMG, we have so much in common! Props to HardfortheYard.)

From Georges St. Pierre’s latest blog entry for our good buddies at Yardbarker.com:

I’m on my way to Brazil, but I stopped off in Chicago to see my training partner Patrick Cote fight for the world middleweight title against Anderson Silva. While I believe he was the first fighter to make it into the 3rd round against Anderson, it’s sad to see him lose the way that he did, because of a knee injury. Patrick has a loose ACL even before, and he had been able to fight 3 fights with it, but unfortunately this one was too much for his knee. I think he was doing pretty well against Anderson, and it was a smart strategy for him to bring the fight into the later rounds. I was very impressed by the performance of Thiago Alves — he showed everybody why he belongs in the top fighters in the welterweight division. Of course, it’s up to the UFC, but I think he will be one of my next opponents pretty soon.

So start getting psyched for St. Pierre/Alves. Pitbull definitely earned his shot with his three-round domination of Josh Koscheck on Saturday night, and he could easily turn out to be St. Pierre’s most challenging title defense yet. To read GSP’s thoughts on his new BJJ black belt (congrats!), his new condo in Ile-des-soeurs, and his recent photo shoot for the cover of Men’s Fitness, read the rest of his blog post here.

You may have noticed Matt Hughes sitting Octagon-side at UFC 87. At least, that’s where he was for most of the night. Turns out he didn’t make it all the way through the evening, and you can probably guess why. From Matt Hughes’ blog:

I went there really to watch one fight, probably not the one you’re expecting. I went there to watch Brock Lesnar. He is so interesting because he is so athletic as well as being so powerful. So that fight went just like I thought it would, Brock took him down whenever he wanted and on the ground he did whatever he wanted. I was also there watching my buddy, Roger, but he didn’t quite look the same. I don’t think him or Kenny fought their best fight on Saturday. Roger looked to have done a few things different and I would say that he needs to go back to what he was doing before.

The last fight of the night was Georges and Fitch. Georges didn’t look as big as he has before and he seemed like he had gotten tired from the first round. Fitch had the game plan of countering Georges and you just can’t do that. You can’t counter a quicker fighter. To be honest, halfway in the third round I got up and walked out of the arena and went to my hotel. The fight wasn’t the most exciting and I wanted to get out of there before everyone else was getting up to leave.

I’m sure Hughes’ decision to walk out of GSP’s first successful title defense halfway through had everything to do with the quality of the fight and not his personal feelings about St. Pierre. Yes, the GSP-Fitch fight did win “Fight of the Night”, but hey, if you stay all the way until the end you’re going to have a hell of a time getting back to your hotel. You’re also going to have to hear the words, “…and still UFC welterweight champion” and know they aren’t talking about you. You can decide for yourself which of those two things played a greater role in Hughes’ decision to walk out.

As we approach the big showdown on Saturday night, here’s some lesser-known Georges St. Pierre fights to get you in the mood. First, it’s St. Pierre’s second Octagon appearance at UFC 48, where he beats down current IFL welterweight champ Jay Hieron in under two minutes. Next, it’s GSP’s first pro fight, where Rush staves off the scrappy Ivan Menjivar to score a very questionable TKO via verbal tapout at the end of the first round. And finally, it’s the “GoldenPalace.com” TKO fight against Dave Strasser, which St. Pierre took after his first career loss (vs. Matt Hughes at UFC 50); lovely half-guard to side-control pass at 5:11 and the fight-ending kimura is just as slick.

(GSP vs. Jay Hieron, UFC 48, 6/19/04)

(GSP vs. Ivan Menjivar, UCC 7, 1/25/02; fight starts at the 4:06 mark)

(GSP vs. Dave Strasser, TKO 19, 1/29/05; fight starts at the 3:57 mark)

Props: MMAScraps

(Props: MMAWeeklyVideos)

…and here’s why. More proof that Dana White at UFC Fan Expo Q+As — much like a mafioso on the day of his daughter’s wedding — is highly receptive to outlandish requests.

Speaking of Fan Expos, the UFC has officially announced that their next one will take place October 7th and 8th at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. The two-day event will coincide with a yet-to-be-announced UFC pay-per-view card on 10/8, which will likely be hosted at the Toyota Center.

You know MMA has gone mainstream when fighters like Georges St-Pierre appearing on the cover of magazines like Men’s Health have become common occurrences.

The UFC welterweight champ is on the cover of the April issue and is interviewed for a feature spread in the Men’s fitness and lifestyle magazine.

Check out the highlights of the article and a behind the scenes video of the photo shoot after the jump.

By: Brian J. D’Souza

Georges St-Pierre’s new book The Way of the Fight is a smashing success as a representation of all of St-Pierre’s ideals, both as a fighter and as a human being. Meshing the genres of biography, philosophy, and self-help, the resulting story yields an enjoyable read that is greater than the sum of its parts. Even more remarkable — the book is devoid of any trace of a bitter or vindictive tone that could taint what is essentially a book about one man overcoming adversity at every turn.

Still, this book is not a comprehensive biography of St-Pierre. As Jacob McArthur Mooney of The National Post notes, “The Way of the Fight is an account of the GSP brand…and the book’s occasional head-feints to the ‘real Georges’ are never more than teases.”

There are critical reasons why any UFC fighter should tread carefully when publishing a book. Look no further than the debacle that ensued between BJ Penn and UFC president Dana White when Penn released his own autobiography Why I Fight in 2010. Or Anderson Silva’s autobiography being pulled off the shelves in Brazil after his former manager Chute Boxe founder Rudimar Fedrigo engaged him in legal action.

But what was so controversial that it was left out of The Way of the Fight? Here’s a primer with four aspects of St-Pierre’s life and career that weren’t touched upon.

PAST MANAGERS

The Way of the Fight is divided into five sections, each focusing on a critical figure in GSP’s development. The last section is called “Conscience” and is centered on Rodolphe Beaulieu, St-Pierre’s current manager, with his other co-manager Philippe Lepage being given a brief mention.

Two names that never come up in this book are Stephane Patry, St-Pierre’s first manager and the promoter of the (now defunct) Quebec-based promotion TKO, and Shari Spencer, St-Pierre’s second manager. Why omit the two most critical people to St-Pierre’s business relationships who played a role in bringing him to superstardom?

Said GSP to YA Magazine of the time period when Patry was managing him, “In my entourage and my management, I got screwed. A lot of people were stealing money from me.”

("Christ, I look like Gus Johnson.") 

In case you missed the prognosis, Josh Gross from ESPN.com reported yesterday that Josh Koscheck had to be driven to Boston by his trainer "Crazy" Bob Cook sunday evening where he is scheduled today to have surgery today for a broken orbital bone he suffered during his five-round routing by welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre Saturday night in Montreal at UFC 124.


(At least Kos’ eye doesn’t look like the business end of a Fleshlight anymore.)

(Video courtesy of YouTube.com/asylumchannel)

Props to our buds at Asylum.com for putting Georges St. Pierre to good use when he stopped by their offices the other day. To recap, GSP is not impressed by your work, not impressed by Matt Hughes, not impressed by Taylor Swift, and somewhat impressed with that orange. Hopefully GSP keeps the running gag going and delivers his catchphrase to every losing fighter in tomorrow night’s TUF 12 elimination round.

(Video courtesy Sportsnet)

Sportsnet’s "Showdown" Joe Ferraro sat down with Jon Fitch this past weekend in Vancouver and, among other topics, spoke with the American Kickboxing Academy fighter about the UFC’s welterweight landscape and his teammate, Josh Koscheck’s year-end showdown with 170-pound champion. Georges St-Pierre.

Not surprisingly, Fitch is picking Kos to beat GSP, and says that if it happens and Josh successfully defends his belt,  he’ll move up to middleweight indefinitely.

"The first fight, Koscheck lost the fight to a takedown. He won the first round, lost the second round and in the third he shoots a single, switches of to a double and Georges is able to defend it and sprawl and Josh has to pull guard," Fitch said. "That was the deciding factor in that fight, so it will be interesting to see where this fight goes now. I don’t know if will be as much of a wrestling match as it was the first time. There might be a lot more striking involved. It’s a tough fight and its an interesting fight, but I think Koscheck’s gonna win it."

Part 1
(Video courtesy YouTube/WrestlingObserver)

During a media scrum prior to the UFC 114 press conference, UFC president Dana White revealed that,  contingent on sanctioning happening in Ontario, he is hoping to hold a December event in Toronto, which will feature a championship match-up between welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and his rival coach from The Ultimate Fighter 12, Josh Koscheck.

Considering affirmations by both White and new director of Canadian operations, Tom Wright were made at last week’s press conference that the promotion will likely hold its first event at Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome), the event could potentially draw as many as 70,000 attendees, which is around the number Wrestlemania 18 did at the venue in 2002.

Hopefully the calibre of card is relative to the amount of live gate the show will garner. If it is, we could be treated to an event that eclipses the epic PRIDE NYE shows we were spoiled by in the past.

Part 2 of the video after the jump

(Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports)

Of the many things that set UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre apart from his competition, one of the most notable is his willingness to travel great lengths in order to improve elements of his game. While many fighters are content to hang out in one camp, GSP has traveled to Brazil for jiu-jitsu training, spent time learning from the Canadian wrestling team, and regularly leaves his Montreal home base to bang with the all-star team at Jackson’s MMA in Albuquerque or drill his Muay Thai at the Wat in New York. The latest piece of the puzzle is a familiar one: St. Pierre is now working on his boxing with legendary trainer Freddie Roach, at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. As he told Yahoo! Sports:

“It is time to focus on my boxing. When I get to the other side of my career I don’t want to be one of those fighters who have been hit too many times, so they keep getting knocked out. If you have the opportunity to work with someone like Freddy, you take advantage…I’ve only been here a few days with Freddie and each time I left feeling like I was better.”

GSP plans on spending a week with Roach before taking off to film TUF 12, opposite Josh "Booooooo!" Koscheck. As for Roach, the soft-spoken trainer is beginning to occupy a very unique place in the world of MMA.

(Props: MMA Fighting)

During the six-month layoff following his last title defense against Thiago Alves, Georges St. Pierre has been in the gym, getting even more jacked. Now walking around at 193 pounds of lean muscle, GSP is contemplating a move up to middleweight, and discusses what that would entail in the interview above. First off, he’d have to get even larger, and he’d do it through diet, not steroids, which is good to know. Also, the move would be permanent; he’s not interested in the back-and-forth weight-hopping done by guys like Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson. But like so many other UFC stars, he has no interest in fighting his friends and training partners, which include Nate Marquardt, Patrick Cote, and Denis Kang: "If I’m in mount position, and it’s time to land that big hellbow that will leave a scar on the forehead of my friend and knock him out cold with cerebral damage, if he’s my friend I will never do that." Good Lord, whatever happened to putting personal loyalties aside in the name of a paycheck?

Related: Diego Sanchez reportedly posted the message "Going back to 170" on his Facebook page last night, but it has since been removed. According to Sanchez’s manager, Jeff Clark, no decision has been made at this time regarding what weight class he will compete in next.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Following his four-round drubbing at the hands of Georges St. Pierre at UFC 94, the general consensus was that BJ Penn should return to the 155-pound division for good, and give up his pipe-dream of becoming the UFC’s welterweight champion. Penn did return to lightweight competition, and went on to completely demolish the division’s two top contenders, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez. He now finds himself in same position as his nemesis GSP, where no challenger to his title seems quite worthy enough. So will we be seeing the Prodigy make another run at welterweight next year? Dana White lays it out:

Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar are among the names of lightweight fighters who have enjoyed great success recently, and could be tapped as Penn’s next opponent. But good luck selling them as actual threats to the belt. If the UFC’s main-event-drought continues, they might be better off using Penn for exhibitions against tough welterweights like Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch, or Thiago Alves — at least until an undisputed #1 lightweight contender emerges. Few people are clamoring for Penn/GSP III at this point, but I think we all want to see Penn get an even greater challenge his next time out, even if it takes him out of his most effective weight class.

(Props: MMA Mania)

When we first saw this trailer to Universal Soldier: Regeneration, we were pleased to learn that Andrei Arlovski not only has a role in the flick, but is actually one of the three leads along with JCVD and Dolph Lundgren. Despite his prominence, the Pitbull was apparently given no lines, which is probably for the best considering his accent is thicker than Ice-T’s wife’s ass. [Ed. note: Yes, I graduated from the Michael Schiavello School of Genius Pop-Culture References.] Can Andrei parlay his skills as Tough Silent Guy into a long-term film career, or will he have to go back to his crappy day job?

After the jump: Some douchebag ruins a poor girl’s big moment.

(Yup. We’re bringing this wishful thinking image out again. Read on, and you’ll see why)

Remember a few weeks ago when Georges St. Pierre’s former manager, Stephane Patry published the UFC welterweight champ’s supposed “secret plan” to retire after a fight with middleweight G.O.A.T. Anderson Silva and then St. Pierre and his head coach Firas Zahabi did a horrible job of lying and totally denied that GSP had made such a plan while focusing so intensely on his coming fight with Nick Diaz? Yeah, well, the ruse is pretty much over now.

Zahabi was on Sherdog Radio recently and spilled the beans on the record regarding tentative possibilities (I know, be still your hearts!) for St. Pierre’s career. After the champ returns from vacation, Zahabi says that the fighter, coach and management will listen to what the UFC wants and discuss their options.

According to the coach, Anderson Silva and number one welterweight contender Johny Hendricks are both possible. “I think Georges would do either fight, to be honest with you,” Zahabi told Sherdog.

Many of you have weighed in on who BJ Penn might have been talking about when he said he has already found the Frazier to his Ali. Here’s a bit from The Sun that might shed some more light:

“Fighting GSP is all I think about every day. A rematch would be very good and I’ll make sure that I will 100 per cent guarantee victory if we fight again.” Penn also claimed he would be happy to face former welterweight champion Matt Hughes in a rubber match, but fears the veteran could walk away from mixed martial arts.

He added: “I’d love to fight Matt Hughes again but I think he could walk away after his loss to St Pierre. If he does walk away from the sport, I wouldn’t be surprised after what happened the other night. Before his fight with Georges, I was really hoping I’d get another shot at Matt Hughes but after that fight, that was so embarrassing for him I don’t know how he’s going to rebound from that. I’d love to fight him again. If we can put the fight together somehow I’d love it but he’s also getting older so I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Is is GSP, then? Or maybe it’s Matt Hughes and he’s just hoping to fight him again. Matt Hughes claims he’s not done, so it could happen if BJ moves up. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open for ya’.

And for what it’s worth, BJ has also said he thought Matt Hughes fought like a pussy against GSP. We just think Hughes got his ass kicked.

(“When people started asking me if I was going to fight someone other than Georges, I was like…”)

(“…and then I was like…”)

UFC interim welterweight champ Carlos Condit made a stop by HDNet’s Inside MMA last night and revealed his intention to wait on his Team Jackson stablemate Georges St-Pierre to return from knee surgery, instead of taking a bout in the interim.

“The bottom line is, I have my heart set on fighting Georges St-Pierre. If George is back this year, even if it’s…later…even if it’s November, which is what’s being thrown out there, I’m waiting for Georges and that would be my next opponent,” Condit told hosts Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice. If, perhaps he’s not ready to fight this year — not ready to fight until 2013, I will entertain the idea of taking on somebody else.”

Some will complain that he should be rematching Nick Diaz, but unless the Stockton native comes out of the other side of his suspension appeal in Nevada without any sanctions against him, he likely won’t be fighting any time this year.

(Georges is so pumped to fight Diaz, he wears his fight gear while he hobbles around outside all of the local Stockton head shops.)

With all of the criticism Georges St-Pierre has gotten the past few years for his conservative style of fighting, sometimes people overlook just how much the dominant UFC welterweight kingpin purveys the blueprint of how a champion should act both inside and outside of the Octagon.

In a recent interview he did for UFC.com, St-Pierre said that because he hasn’t been active lately due to a pair of knee injuries, he doesn’t consider himself to be the UFC welterweight title holder anymore and that he will need to beat the winner of the interim title bout between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit Saturday night to once again become the champ.

No, that’s not a photo of Stephen Hawking in bed, it’s actually Georges St-Pierre already rehabbing his reconstructed knee just five days removed from ACL surgery.