Well it was rumored Georges St-Pierre would retire today and he sort of did. Today the UFC held a media tele-conference call in which the UFC welterweight champion announced that he would vacate his title and leave the sport for a undisclosed amount of time. St-Pierre cited on multiple occasions that he was “mentally tired” and needed to step away from the pressure of being the UFC’s top PPV draw.
St-Pierre who is at this point the greatest welterweight to compete in his division said he would return but did not specify when, “I’ve been fighting for a long time. It has been a lot of pressure and criticism and I decided I needed to take time off. Physically I’m 100%, I just feel I cant go thru another training camp. When I am ready, I will come back. I will have a blue sticker on my wrist and I will be a challenger and I have done this a few times before.”
UFC president Dana White was supportive of St-Pierre’s announcement citing that he agrees with the former champions decision one hundred percent. The main question on many fans minds is if this is the right move for St-Pierre. Time off for athletes could affect them in a multitude of ways but Pierre contends that in his time off he will continue to train so when he does decide to come back he “will be better.”
The single most important factor it seems in St-Pierre’s decision to do this is that he wanted to just live a normal life. For that reason, you can’t hate on the guy as he deserves and earns the right to enjoy of his spoils of war.
