It’s fair to say Georges St-Pierre is a fan of UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
Adesanya’s most recent outing was a dominant second-round TKO win over the previously undefeated Paulo Costa to defend his middleweight title for the second time.
Despite his post-fight antics that received plenty of criticism, many observers were more impressed with the performance of “The Last Stylebender” on the night.
The former two-weight champion in St-Pierre was one of them as he believes the undefeated Adesanya is not only a perfect fighter, but the total package as well.
“He’s fantastic. I watched his fight the other day. He’s amazing,” St-Pierre told ESPN. “He’s a perfect fighter. He’s clean. Great image, great dancer as well, very entertaining. He’s got it all, he’s got the charisma and everything. He’s a good role model, he has his own style in the way that he does stuff that sometimes shocks people in terms of stuff he does after the fight.
“But it’s all about ‘love me, hate me but don’t ignore me.’ He has his own style. He’s very entertaining. We live in the entertainment business and our job is to entertain the audience and he’s doing it very, very well.”
St-Pierre has long expressed his desire to return for a fight that is high-risk, high-reward and boosts his legacy further. Khabib Nurmagomedov is the one fight he has earmarked repeatedly only for the UFC to shut it down multiple times.
But would he fight Adesanya?
“Rush” laughed at the suggestion before quickly ruling it out, stating that the problems he suffered during his move up to 185 to face Michael Bisping in 2017 taught him something.
“For me, it’s always better to stay at your weight,” he added. “Your body has an optimal weight for performance.”
Perhaps that also rules out any potential fight with Nurmagomedov at below 170 pounds.