Georges St-Pierre made waves recently when he moved up to the middleweight division and beat Michael Bisping at UFC 217, claiming the division's title.
It was a hard-fought battle with Bisping, but St-Pierre claimed the belt and has now won UFC titles at two weight division - welterweight and middleweight.
However, former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold doesn't expect GSP to hold onto the middleweight crown for very long, as the undersized fighter will likely try to avoid a title defense.
According to MMAFighting.com, Rockhold said GSP is too small to defend his title and encouraged him to "move along" so the division could get back to the way it was before:
“He’s not fighting any of us,” Rockhold said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “He’s too small. Guys like me would feast on Georges. He won’t last here. He had his opportunity, he got his belt, good for you. Just move along and let us handle our business here.”
Indeed, there isn't much left for GSP to fight for at the middleweight division. He got his belt and will now likely shift his focus to other things, perhaps back in the welterweight division.
Rockhold says he thought GSP would lose to Bisping, but now that he has won, things are a mess a the middleweight division:
“I thought [GSP] would potentially lose, yes,” Rockhold said. “But I did say if he did win, he would be in a situation where wouldn’t fight any of us and then we would just be more tangled up.”
Now, Rockhold and others, like Robert Whittaker, will try to figure out who the interim champion is if GSP no longer wants to fight at that weight class.
GSP has said he's taking a break from fighting while he deals with a bout of colitis, but Rockhold isn't buying that line of thinking, saying he thinks GSP simply doesn't want to book any more middleweight fights:
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Rockhold said. “But, I mean, the fact is come out and just that say you don’t want to fight here in the division, relinquish the title, and move on. I’m tired of story after story and just dragging us on and leaving us in the dark. State what it is. If you’re sick you’re sick, but the fact is, you don’t want to fight in the division.”
What happens next in the middleweight division remains to be seen, but it sounds like Rockhold and others are ready to move on, with or without GSP.