The UFC immediately refuted Georges St-Pierre’s claim on Monday about no longer being under contract. Their statement, however, was also disputed by the fighter’s legal team, who recently spoke to ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto to clarify their issues.
According to attorney Jim Quinn, the main reason for their decision to terminate St-Pierre’s contract was that the UFC had breached it by not putting forward a fight offer. With that considered, Quinn adds that they are still open to the possibility of the UFC offering a new contract.
"Our position is the contract is terminated. 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,” Quinn said.
St-Pierre apparently never received a bout agreement for the year 2016, which eventually led to his legal team setting a ten-day deadline for the UFC to come up with an offer. According to his lawyers, the UFC only responded during the last day of the deadline with a letter about a supposed fight against former champion Robbie Lawler. Lawler, at the time, had just pulled out of his scheduled November 12th fight at UFC 205 against Donald Cerrone.
“The UFC waited until the 11th-and-a-half hour to come back with bare bones information, that floated one fighter and nothing else. No specifics at all in terms of fight date, venue, number of rounds,” said attorney Eric Hochstadt. “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,” Hochstadt continued. “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."
But while there may be an ongoing dispute against the UFC, GSP has left his door open to fight under the company, according to his lawyers.
"Georges wants to fight. He's not ruling out the UFC,” said Quinn. “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."