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Georges St-Pierre: I'm a Free Agent; UFC Contract Canceled
Georges St-Pierre is now a free agent. So says the former UFC welterweight champion.
“Right now, I’m free agent. My lawyer terminated the contract with the UFC,” St-Pierre declared on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. UFC officials had yet to comment as of the time of publication.
As St-Pierre explained it, his team had been negotiating with the UFC since February, but following numerous starts and stops, his attorney, James Quinn, gave the promotion a deadline, which the UFC apparently did not meet. At that point, St-Pierre said, Quinn notified him that he was a free agent.
“Well, what happened is, last February, I told Lorenzo (Fertitta) that I want to fight again. We had a meeting in Las Vegas and I told him I want to fight again,” St-Pierre recounted. “Since February, my team was in negotiation with Lorenzo’s. Many names were offered and different events, UFC 200, New York, but the best date was the Toronto date. That’s why I entered USADA testing.”
While negotiations are generally a lot of back and forth, and St-Pierre expected that, he didn't anticipate what happened after the UFC was sold mid-negotiation. That, he said, was when communications blew apart.
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“I think we were close to an agreement at some point toward the end, until some big news arrived. The news was the UFC got sold to new owners. We were told that everything was put on ice until the new owners take charge,” said St-Pierre.
“So we waited for weeks without any news. Finally, then news comes, the new owners told us that Lorenzo’s offer was off the table. It was like a shock for us.”
St-Pierre tries not to let the business side of his career get too personal, but at that point, he said that he got angry. He and his team felt that they were close to getting a deal done for his return. They felt it was only a matter of a few final details. To have months of negotiations yanked out from under him, St-Pierre got upset.
At that point, he hired New York attorney James Quinn to force the UFC's hand.
“James Quinn gave them a legal deadline because I already have a contract with UFC. (He) gave them a deadline to give me a fight because I wanted to fight,” said St-Pierre.
“I didn't have any news until the last day of the deadline, late at night. They were supposed to schedule us a fight, but they sent us a letter saying if I was interested in fighting Robbie Lawler sometime. I knew that Robbie Lawler pulled off of New York's card. The next day, my lawyer James Quinn told me Georges, now you're a free agent, you're free.”
While the UFC has yet to comment on the situation, it's unlikely that St-Pierre's word will be the last on the situation. Despite St-Pierre's attorney declaring him a free agent, it's unlikely that the new UFC ownership, WME|IMG, will simply let him walk away if he attempts to fight elsewhere.
