The dude is 34 years old with multiple issues with his shoulder and especially knees. He refuses to move up in weight (I think any top 15-20 MW legit wrecks him anyways) and he's already said he wouldn't want to fight Condit again.. I don't see him doing good against Hendricks (terrible match up), Brown (terrible match up as well), Condit (winnable, but will get hurt doing so again), Hector Lombard (would destroy GSP), Maia (could submit him but the safest fight damage wise), won't fight Rory for personal reasons, and Robbie would straight murder him imho. I actually do miss his dominance on the weight class...but the game has passed him by. He can't physically keep up even if he wanted to, those are just facts. :icon_sad:
He's a small WW by today's standards. Moving up is less likely than moving to LW. But I like how all of your opinions are labeled facts. I personally do agree though that he probably won't come back.
I doubt he comes back either. He doesn't need to financially or otherwise. He's famous and set for life. And it's not like the PED problem is getting any better in MMA.
Thanks for your opinion. My opinion is that your opinion is wrong on everything other than he's not coming back.
He only calls Condit the most dangerous because he really wants Condit to win so he could fight a guy who he already 50-45'd easily. He wants nothing to do with Hendricks or Lawler punching him hard in the face. He doesnt like that too much "Please stop it! Get him off me!"
His career is over. Not saying he isn't still dangerous to anyone, even now (especially if he is still training), but he has physical problems, and even at his best he was never a really 'hungry' fighter. He was a competitor and loved to win, but you could tell that whatever was once there and pushed him to fight was gone after the Hendricks' fight. GSP was all, good God, why am I still doing this to myself? He was a pro fighter for what, 12 years, and champ for 6 or 7? Nobody can stay hungry and motivated forever, especially when he had already met every conceivable goal, apart from winning in another weight class (and honestly, moving down would have been...weird, and he would be a bit small to deal with the big MWs. I mean, Jeez, can you imagine him fighting Luke Rockhold?).
If he came back, be would murk and ww with the right mind set. If Rory can't stop a Kennedy takedown, there's no way he's stopping a Gsp takedown.
According to GSP, it was gone before the Hendricks fight. I also dispute your claim that he was "never really a hungry fighter". Watch his fights starting with the loss to Hughes and up to the 2nd Serra fight. He was plenty hungry.
Good post. Fighting at the top levels is just too damn hard to do successfully for that long. So, yeah, GSP might come back and do a reunion tour with some other name fighters, and they will sell a lot of PPVs, just as Ken Shamrock sold a lot of PPVs when he came back to fight Tito, but GSP's real career is over.
