UFC star picks Georges St-Pierre to beat Khabib Nurmagomdov in superfight: ‘I think he’s much more well rounded
Likely one of the biggest ‘what-if’ fights in the history of the UFC is a super clash between Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov, however, former middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker has speculated the former would possess too much on the feet — and in any order department for the Russian to overcome in their respective primes.
St-Pierre, a former undisputed welterweight champion who returned from his swansong to then capture the undisputed middleweight crown, officially retired from combat sports competition following the second of those title wins back in 2019.
However, in the time since, the Canadian megastar has been linked with a slew of second-retirement snapping returns, in the form of another superfight against ex-two-weight champion, Conor McGregor, and even another welterweight title pursuit against then-welterweight kingpin, Tyron Woodley.
And likely the most notable of those lucrative pairings was a suggested catchweight clash between St-Pierre and former undisputed lightweight champion and fellow Hall of Fame inductee, Nurmagomedov — ultimately to no avail.
Robert Whittaker picks Georges St-Pierre to beat Khabib Nurmagomedov
However, according to former middleweight titleholder, Whittaker, if St-Pierre actually ever competed against a prime Nurmagomedov — he would likely have handed the Dagestani star his first and only mixed martial arts defeat.
“I think prime GSP (Georges St-Pierre) beats Khabib (Nurmagomedov),” Robert Whittaker said on the MMArcade podcast “I think GSP’s much more well-rounded. I think he’s got the wrestling and the Jiu-Jitsu to kind of take away a lot of Nurmagomedov’s strengths.
Whittaker’s claims come hot on the heels of comments from St-Pierre last year, in which he revealed a potential 2020 pairing between the duo was in the works, in which he claimed he would’ve likely won, to boot.
“I think Khabib (Nurmagomedov) could have beat me, I’m not saying I could beat Khabib all the time,” Georges St-Pierre said during an appearance on the Pound-4-Pound podcast. “I was confident enough to take that fight that I was thinking that if I take that fight, I’m going to beat him that day at that particular place, that doesn’t mean I will beat him all the time. But I was confident – maybe I’m wrong.”
“I think I would have beat him because if he would have come to put pressure on me, I would have put him down,” Georges St-Pierre explained. “I would have the confidence to try to go for it. …I think that I would have maybe been the first guy that he fought or one of the only guys that would have tried to put him down, and I’ve put down everybody that I’ve fought.”
