UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre says a scheduled date in November in Montreal would be a “reasonable timeframe” for his return to the Octagon and he would love it if the venue for his comeback fight was the Olympic Stadium.
GSP was teaching a martial arts seminar at Robinson’s Karate in Newmarket, Ont., on Saturday and afterward, he sat down with UFC CENTRAL’s (Showdown) Joe Ferraro for an exclusive interview.
During the chat, the Montrealer said he is in the last stages of his rehab from a torn ACL and surgery to repair his knee, and he expects to be full-time training again in July.
The UFC has already announced an event in his hometown on Nov. 17, and asked whether that was a realistic date for a return, he said yes.
But would the 23,000-seat Bell Centre, which has hosted four UFC events already, be big enough for a show that features the return of a Canadian superstar for the first time in over 18 months?
The 30-year-old mentioned a different option.
“If they could do it, I would like to go to maybe Olympic Stadium,” St-Pierre said. “Roberto Duran fought Sugar Ray Leonard there back in the day. I would like to make the same thing happen. It would be history … It would be incredible to do that and it would pump me up even more."
The famous "Brawl in Montreal" — one of the biggest fights to ever be staged in Quebec, on June 20, 1980 — saw the WBC welterweight champion Leonard lose for the first time in his professional boxing career to Panama’s Duran by unanimous decision. It naturally garnered international attention, as would any fight involving one of the UFC’s top pound-for-pound fighters after a long-awaited return.
"It would be a challenge for me to beat the crowd of Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran," added St-Pierre, who has already been part of a record-setting night when he headlined UFC 129 last April 30, which saw 55,724 packed into the Rogers Centre for the organization’s first-ever stadium show. He could easily end up being the man to headline its first two.
St-Pierre said he hopes to make a statement when he finally comes back, and he also believes he’ll show fans something that they haven’t seen before.
"I’ve changed a lot. I’ve changed the way I train. I’ve changed as a fighter," St-Pierre said. "I grew a lot and I will be very different than how I was before, in a good way. I can’t wait to be back."
