5 great MMA fights we missed out on

#3 Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva

The fans dreamed of a superfight between St-Pierre and Silva for years

‘Superfights’ across weight classes are suddenly all the rage in the UFC, with this weekend’s Henry Cejudo vs. TJ Dillashaw clash being the third champion vs. champion meeting since June 2018. The one ‘Superfight’ that everyone really wanted though is one it looks like we’ll never see – Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva.

The talk of a potential GSP/Silva fight began largely back in 2009, as both men were on incredible runs in the Welterweight and Middleweight divisions respectively. Although their divisions were still full of interesting contenders, it was hard not to imagine a fight between these two seemingly invincible champions – would GSP’s wrestling and boxing be able to overcome Silva’s virtuoso striking game?

Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem like either man was too interested in the fight – probably because they were both earning big money by being defending champions. GSP stated that he didn’t want to move up to 185lbs, feeling the move would be detrimental to his body (which would prove to be true when he did move to 185lbs in 2017 and saw his health suffer as a result) while Silva simply couldn’t move down to 170lbs. A catchweight was never truly mooted.

With cross-divisional fights now more popular, the idea of the fight has been spoken about again recently but was immediately shot down by GSP – who claims he’s no longer interested due to Silva’s various drug test failures.

In the end, it remains a pity that we never saw this one, but perhaps the careers of both champions were better in the long run because the fight never happened.