After months of talks and delays, the middleweight championship fight between Georges St-Pierre and Michael Bisping is set to go ahead.
The former welterweight kingpin, who hasn’t fought since 2013, took to Instagram to post a photo of himself signing the fight contract on Wednesday.
‘Finally signing my UFC 217 bout agreement vs Michael Bisping for November 4 at Madison Square Garden – Get ready for a big night in NYC!’ he wrote alongside the image.
St-Pierre resigned with the UFC after months of negotiations back in February with Dana White quickly announcing the news he would be stepping up a weight class to challenge 185-pound champ Bisping some time in 2017.
The two even took part in a fiery press conference in March, a rarity in the promotion for a bout without a date.
But the initial excitement soon turned sour with GSP unwilling to fight until the end of the year and fans growing increasingly unconvinced as to whether the returning Canadian deserved a instant title shot in a division he had never fought in, especially considering the number of contenders in wait.
White’s attempts to convince St-Pierre to return earlier failed and the UFC went on to announce that the match-up had been scrapped, stating the injured Bisping would face the winner of the interim title showdown between Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero and St-Pierre would try to reclaim the welterweight crown he never lost.
Both fighters continued to contend, however, that the only opponent they were interested in was each-other. Bisping looking for the ‘money fight’ against the MMA legend and St-Pierre hoping to become a two-weight world champion.
Fortunately for them, despite White claiming that ‘ship had sailed’, everything changed in the past few weeks.
Whittaker won the interim belt but found himself sidelined with injury until next year in the process.
And welterweight champion Tyron Woodley defended his strap against Demian Maia, but in a bout which featured the lowest amount of strikes in the history of UFC championship fights.
White, far from impressed with Woodley’s performance, told the media following the fight that Bisping vs St-Pierre was back on because he knew ‘Bisping would show up and fight’.
And now the two veterans will go head-to-head in the company’s second ever event at Madison Square Garden.
