Video: Georges St-Pierre Officially Announces Retirement

Georges St-Pierre announces his retirement from active mixed martial arts (MMA) competition on Thursday.

This was an expected move after reports surfaced of the news on Wednesday. The former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion took to the podium on Thursday morning in Montreal, Canada to confirm the news.

“I announce my retirement. There’s no tears. I’m very happy to do it. It takes a lot of discipline to retire on top. It’s time to do it. In combat sports, you should retire on top. I’m thankful I get to do that. I always wanted to retire on my own. I didn’t want to be told to retire…I wanted to retire on top and that’s very hard to do.”

St-Pierre is in fact one of the most tenured fighters in UFC history as far as actual cage time goes as in 22 UFC fights, he has amassed six hours of fight time.

GSP returned to competition in November of 2017. This was after four years away from the sport to win the middleweight title. The ending of that fight went down with a submission victory in the third round over Michael Bisping at UFC 217. However, shortly after the fight, he had to vacate the title. The reason was due to him dealing with colitis.

When “GSP” decided to take time off from MMA back in 2013, it wasn’t because his body was broken and he needed to heal. Instead, it was the black cloud hanging over his head that drove him away.

St-Pierre walks away from the sport with a 26-2 MMA record with nine successful welterweight title defenses.