After beating Carlos
Condit in a bloody five round battle on November 17 at UFC 154 in Montreal,
Georges St. Pierre had proven that he is unbeatable in the UFC’s welterweight
division. That fight was St. Pierre’s first fight since tearing his ACL, and he
still looked like his same dominant self especially when the fight went to the
ground.
| Photo via latimes.com |
So what is next for the
31 year old Canadian?
St. Pierre’s next fight
could very well come in a super-fight against current middleweight champion Anderson
Silva. St. Pierre and Silva are arguably the top two fighters in the world.
Being that they come from different weight classes (St. Pierre is a 170 lb. welterweight while Silva is a 185 lb. middleweight),
the fight would probably be fought as a catch-weight bout somewhere in between.
The significance of that is there would not be a title on the line.
Even in the
catch-weight scenario where there would be no title up for grabs, a fight
between St. Pierre and Silva would be huge for the UFC. Though it’s just
speculation, it would most likely break the UFC pay-per-view buys record
currently held by UFC 100 (Lesnar vs. Mir)
with an estimated 1.6 million buys. It would also have the potential to break
the gate revenue and attendance held by UFC 129 (St. Pierre vs. Shields) with over $12 million in gate revenue and
attendance over 55,000 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. UFC President Dana
White says that St. Pierre and Silva are the two biggest drawers.
Nothing official has
come out yet, but the St. Pierre versus Silva super-fight scenario is worth monitoring
going forward.
Information from www.mma-manifesto.com
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In individual sports,
there is a constant chatter about a player’s union. However, because the
players are less organized than team sports and individual sports take on more
of a survival of the fittest mentality, the organization of a union becomes
quite an involved process.
The rumors have swirled
in the UFC about a fighter’s union, but early last week President Dana White
squashed pretty much all of that. In an ESPN SportsNation chat White said, “It's going to be tough to
see a day with Silva or GSP is giving up big chunks of their money to guys who
won't make two fights in the UFC."
What White said makes
complete sense. The UFC is very much a top heavy organization in terms of the
top fighters earning the most money by far. It really doesn’t make any sense
for the top guys to give up money for guys that will fight maybe one time and
then be forgotten before they were even known.
It is also worth noting
that Dana White is the one that negotiates contracts with the fighters for the
UFC, so he can control where the money goes and who has it all.
The next UFC event will
be UFC on Fox 5 on Saturday December 8 in Seattle where Benson Henderson will
defend his lightweight title against Nate Diaz.
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