Georges St-Pierre exits USADA testing pool, solidifies retirement

Canada’s own Georges “Rush” St-Pierre is one of, if not the greatest MMA fighter to ever live. But after accomplishing all that there is to accomplish, the legend found himself retiring on top of the mountain.

Shortly after his big 2013 welterweight title defense against Johny Hendricks at UFC 167, St-Pierre would announce that he would need a break from the sport that he helped build.

After a four year hiatus, St-Pierre would return in November 2017 to try and add a new accolade to his already uber impressive resume… And that was the UFC middleweight title.

St-Pierre would challenge and defeat the then champion Michael Bisping via third-round submission (rear-naked choke) in their UFC 217 main event in Madison Square Garden.

Unfortunately for the new champion, a battle with ulcerative colitis would then commence as he would vacate the title that he had oh so recently obtained.

Then we fast forward to two weeks ago when St-Pierre would officially announce his retirement after unsuccessfully managing to put together what would have been yet another massive fight with the current lightweight king, Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Even following the recent announcement, speculation continued as to whether or not St-Pierre would come back again one day.

“If [UFC President] Dana [White] called me back and there was something interesting, we’ll see,” St-Pierre said at his retirement press conference. “Like a movie scenario, ‘he’s coming back,’ We’ll see. But right now I’m not thinking about it.”

With all that considered, today UFC vice president of athlete health and performance Jeff Novitzky would reveal (via ESPN) that St-Pierre has handed in his written notice of retirement to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Therefore effectively removing him from the required UFC testing pool.

Now, in the case that St-Pierre does eventually make a return, he will need to re-enter the testing pool and be subjected to six full months of USADA testing prior to a comeback fight. This also comes in the form of a written notice.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/5/2019