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GSP's decision to return was made before Bisping was even champion.
He went on Ariel's show and on UFC Tonight, asking Dana for a chance, and listed 3 opponents - Woodley who was champion, Nate Diaz, or Demian Maia.
I think this was around August or September 2016. There were rumors that GSP was trying to reach a deal with the UFC to fight on UFC 206 in Canada.
This was after Dana White started taking shots at GSP publicly in about July 2016, saying that GSP doesn't want to fight and wants to stay retired.
GSP informed us that he has been negotiating with the UFC since the start of 2016 for a return, and wanted fair compensation for the loss of his ability to earn from Under Armour, since Reebok now had exclusive rights. GSP was told by the UFC that he wasn't worth the money to be re-introduced to the market.
This is why GSP came on that show to ask Dana White for a chance, saying hey if you don't think I'm worth it, give me a shot.
So, yea, GSP decided to come back in about Jan 2016, to the WW division. Bisping won the belt in June 2016. This was after GSP's decision to return.
What happened is that the UFC lost its 2 biggest stars- Conor beat Alvarez in November 2016 and started leveraging the UFC hard, saying he wasn't going to come back to fight in MMA, and started talking boxing...
Ronda got smashed by Amanda Nunes in December 2016, and went to hide under a rock, and retire.
So, Dana and the UFC had to reach a deal with GSP in about March 2017, when the UFC decided that GSP would fight Bisping in July.
GSP, not wanting to mislead fans, said that a July date was impossible since he had to re-enter the testing pool by USADA for 6 months prior to fighting. Dana then said that the Bisping fight was off, and said GSP would fight Woodley. After Woodley's lackluster performances against Wonderboy II and Maia, Dana threw Woodley under the bus and said the opportunity would now go back to Bisping since Woodley performed like he didn't want a money fight.
So, this is how we ended with GSP vs Bisping for the MW championship.
Not to mention, Bisping did his best to hold out for a chance at fighting GSP. Bisping wasn't shy about admitting to the fact that he would make about $500K fighting Jacare... while he would stand to make about $4Million against GSP.
So... yea. Haters gonna hate, but facts are not going to change.
Haters gonna be like