Georges St-Pierre (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

As the MMA world continues to wait and see what comes next for Georges St-Pierre, one of the latter’s longtime friends, Patrick Cote, believes the new middleweight champ could retire.

St-Pierre returned to the Octagon earlier this month at UFC 217, which marked the first time since 2013 the former welterweight champ had competed. The Canadian went on to choke out Michael Bisping and win the middleweight title, and in doing, he became just the fourth fighter in UFC history to win titles in two divisions.

After the bout, St-Pierre reported that he had issues putting on weight for the contest, and the star has been non-committal, when asked about fighting interim middleweight champ, Robert Whittaker. More recently, Cote appeared on “The MMA Hour”, and the former fighter said this, while discussing St-Pierre’s next move (quotes via Bloody Elbow):

“I will not be surprised if he said ‘okay it’s over, I just wanted to feel that feeling again. You know why I say that? Because it took him so much time to get out of the cage.

“He was standing in the cage and he was kind of feeling everything, he wanted to grab all the emotion. He was in the cage for almost 20 minutes after the fight, so he was looking away, he looking at everything — it looks like he was grabbing all the energy, and just to say that ‘Alright, that was that. I did it, and I’m not going to miss that anymore.’”

“I don’t know. This was the feeling I had when I was (retiring in New York), but we’ll see. I’m not going to be surprised if he’s done with fighting.”

Cote also said that he doubts St-Pierre will fight again at 185 pounds, if he does continue to compete.