One of the biggest what-ifs in UFC history remained just that—a big what-if. Long before both men retired from MMA, fans pushed for the UFC to have the super fight between then welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and then middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Despite the two competing in different weight classes, much like the Makhachev vs. Topuria bout today, the fight intrigued MMA fans greatly.

However, despite the hype, the blockbuster matchup never materialized. During a recent podcast appearance with Demetrious Johnson, the Canadian MMA great opened up about the negotiations and revealed the reasons that ultimately prevented the fight from happening in the early 2010s.

“This is one of the biggest regrets of the fans,” GSP told Mighty Mouse. “What happened is that at the time when I was in my prime and Anderson Silva was in [his] prime. I can only speak from my side because I don’t know what was happening on Anderson Silva’s side. I was only asked once by Dana and Lorenzo Fertitta. 

“I had a request, because I was like, you want me to get out of my weight and go up in a weight class, I need to be compensated [better]… If I’m fighting someone bigger, I need to change my training, try to get bigger. So my request was like if I fight Anderson Silva… I wanted to be compensated better.”

While the UFC doesn’t usually allow its champions to move up and down weight classes so easily, they appeared to have made an exception for the GSP-Silva superfight. However, it appears that once the money angle came in, the UFC decided to pull the plug. This isn’t the first time they’ve done it with a fight. The best example of the same is the recent Jon Jones debacle.

According to Jones, the UFC offered the former heavyweight champion half of what he was offered to face Tom Aspinall to fight Alex Pereira on the UFC White House card—$15 million. But Jon Jones felt the superfight with Pereira was worth more than the fifteen they were offering him. He asked for more, and the UFC immediately dropped it. In GSP’s case, though, he had a few more demands.

“I wanted [the fight to] be [at] a catchweight because Anderson fought in Pride at 170… I needed to go back down because I wouldn’t spend my career there. So, the third one was [that] I wanted to have drug testing implemented. And they never got back to me.”

The Canadian MMA great had said pretty much the same in another interview back in 2015. These additional demands, coupled with the ask for higher pay, likely prompted the UFC brass to set it aside completely.

While that conversation may have ended, GSP did eventually make it to middleweight in his return to the UFC in 2017. Though he won the middleweight title in the fight against Michael Bisping, the matchup with Silva had already slipped away by then. The Brazilian MMA legend was no longer in his prime, having lost his title and suffered 4 losses in 5 fights before 2017. But back in 2013, Dana White had another perspective on why the fight wouldn’t happen.

Dana White claimed Georges St-Pierre didn’t want to fight Anderson Silva

According to Bleacher Report, White pointed to St-Pierre repeatedly backing Chris Weidman to get the win over Anderson Silva in their UFC 162 bout as evidence that the Canadian champion wasn’t eager for the Silva fight.

“There’s no doubt about it. That’s a fact,” White said when asked if St-Pierre seemed uninterested in facing Silva. White argued that if St-Pierre truly wanted the fight, he would have said, “f—k Weidman, I’ll take that fight, I want that fight.”

At the time, St-Pierre had just been booked for his welterweight title defense against Johny Hendricks. As a result, White admitted he found GSP’s reluctance in moving up surprising.

“What’s crazy to me is GSP opted to take a very dangerous fight at 170, without trying to take a dangerous fight at 185,” White stated.

Despite the criticism, Dana White acknowledged St-Pierre naturally belonged at welterweight. As such, he wasn’t interested in forcing the match on him.

Regardless of who feels what way about whom, the fact remains. The fight never happened, and it never will, and today they’re all but retired. Hopefully, the same won’t be the case for Ilia Topuria vs. Islam Makhachev.