In an exclusive interview with Sportsnet on Wednesday, the UFC welterweight champion said that he wanted to keep training and hopefully fight through an MCL injury he suffered on Saturday -- which he called a moderate ligament strain.
But while training on Tuesday he hurt the hamstring on his other side while compensating for the original injury. And that's when he knew he wasn't going to be 100 per cent for the fight on Oct. 29 in Las Vegas. Ultimately he agreed with his manager and doctors that the best decision for him was to pull out.
"(Initially), I knew (the injury) was bad but I thought I had the chance to be 100 per cent the night of the fight if I trained light and conserved myself," St-Pierre explained in an interview from a gym in Montreal. "But the reality was I was not able to recover (fast enough).
He added: "I want to fight my best when I'm at my best."
St-Pierre said that the decision was a very tough one, but he believes it's the right one. And it was definitely an emotional one.
"I'm not going to lie, I cried yesterday," St-Pierre admitted. "I had a ton of pressure falling off my shoulders, because for the last few days I was in the mindset that I was nervous for the fight. I was excited for the fight but I was also nervous to know if I was going to be able to fight.
"Now all the pressure is off, I feel much better. I'm going to do some rehab, maybe take a vacation because I went through a lot. It's not only the fight, it's all the training camp, I went through a lot of stuff. I need to reset the whole thing again and I'll be ready for the next one."
St-Pierre said he eyes a return in early 2012 -- perhaps at one of the UFC's big annual shows.
"The recovery I want to do it well, I don't want to do it too fast. Because now I had an injury and I tried to train on it and maybe made it a little bit worse. I need a good four weeks to do my physio and do it right.
"I would say maybe end of January, possibly the beginning of February (for my return) … Super Bowl, around this time."
Tuesday's news that St-Pierre would be unable to compete -- coupled with the fact a previously scheduled co-main event bout between B.J. Penn and Nick Diaz is the new headliner -- is the latest chapter in the drama revolving around UFC 137.
St-Pierre on Wednesday also addressed the reasoning behind last month's decision to drop Diaz, his original opponent, from the main event after the latter was a no-show for two press conferences last month in both Toronto and Las Vegas.
"I wanted to fight Nick Diaz before this whole thing happened," St-Pierre said. "It's Nick Diaz who did not show up to both press conferences on the press tour. I talked to (UFC owner and CEO) Lorenzo Ferttita, the big boss, and he said to me, 'We cannot take the chance that you fight Nick Diaz and maybe he doesn't show up the day of the fight.' That's what he said to me and it makes perfect sense. I don't want to train the whole time and he doesn't show up."
via:sportsnet
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