VIDEO | Tyron Woodley says he can’t respect GSP for fighting at 185, still hopes to fight him at 170

After years away from the sport, former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre is soon expected to return to the UFC’s Octagon. Instead of returning to the welterweight division where he was once so dominant, however, the Canadian star will make his return at middleweight, where he will take on Michael Bisping for the divisional throne. This fight is expected to occur sometime later this year – though Bisping has suggested that he’ll give the title shot to somebody else if he gets tired of waiting.

In the opinion of Tyron Woodley, who holds the UFC welterweight title, this whole St-Pierre vs. Bisping business is a little strange. In his opinion, it’s hard to respect St-Pierre for making his return at middleweight rather than returning to the welterweight division where he once reigned.

Woodley explained this feeling in a recent interview with TMZ Sports.

“Georges St-Pierre, man,” he said. “I watched him as a champion for my entire career. He got away [retired] right before I had the chance to get my hands on him, and now you come back and you don’t come back to your own weight class? I can’t really respect that.” 

Woodley, of course, has made no secret of the fact that he believes St-Pierre is avoiding him.

“I don’t think he wants to fight me,” Woodley told BJPenn.com’s Chris Taylor earlier this month. I don’t think he wants to come back and fight a guy like me. He wants to fight a guy like Bisping because they are very evenly matched. Bisping is not a huge middleweight. Michael is not known as a guy who will knock your head off and he is not going to outwrestle Georges. So style wise it is a very safe matchup for Georges. He knows that he could potentially lose to Bisping, but that it is a much safer fight for him.”

“One of the reasons he left (Georges St-Pierre) was because he was worried about concussions. With Bisping he doesn’t have to worry about that as much. With me, he knows I am coming to knock him out. Plus I am very hard to takedown and would probably end up taking him down. So he’s not used to that style of matchup. The only guy who was kind of like me was Johny Hendricks and he made Georges go crawl in a cave for three years.”

Do you think Tyron Woodley and GSP will ever fight? Sound off, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/21/2017.