Georges St-Pierre’s attorney opens up on contract dispute with UFC

Former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre may have been close to finalizing a deal with the UFC that would have seen him return to the Octagon , however this week it was revealed by St-Pierre that he was officially a free agent after negotiations with the UFC failed. With that being said, earlier this month, St-Pierre maintained that news regarding his next fight would be revealed in the coming weeks.

Following St-Pierre’s announcement that he was a free agent, the UFC brass was quick to release a statement regarding the matter, refuting the former welterweight champ’s claims that his contract with the UFC had been terminated.

In a new interview with ESPN, one of St-Pierre’s attorneys, Jim Quinn, spoke about the situation, revealing that St-Pierre was able to have his contract terminated due to a breach of contract on the UFC’s part by not securing him a fight.

“Our position is the contract is terminated,” Quinn said. “I suppose they could take legal steps against that or they could offer a new contract. They have a variety of options on their side.”

“The UFC waited until the 11th-and-a-half hour to come back with bare bones information, that floated one fighter and nothing else,” Hochstadt said. “No specifics at all in terms of fight date, venue, number of rounds. All we got, at the 11th hour, was a proposal for somebody. And as Georges said, we don’t know if [Lawler is] ready and able to fight. All we know is he just pulled out of a fight.

“We were working through all the issues in play and had been squaring them away. One of them, no surprise, was the UFC has a Reebok deal that came in long after Georges’ contract. We were working through those things, but ultimately, you’ve got to schedule a fight for your fighter. The UFC knows how to schedule fights. This is what they do every day. Send a bout agreement with all the specifics. They didn’t do that here. Why they chose not to do that, I don’t know.”

“Georges wants to fight,” Quinn said. “He’s not ruling out the UFC. He just believes, at this stage, they had long enough under the old contract. Now he’ll either fight for the UFC or somewhere else, but he’s going to fight.”

Despite the fact that both St-Pierre and Quinn state that ‘Rush’ wants to fight, UFC President Dana White has remained adamant that St-Pierre doesn’t have a desire to fight.

Stay tuned for updates on the situation as they become available.