On November 16, 2013 the UFC’s biggest star left with his hand raised. Georges St-Pierre, battered at the end of a fight with Johny Hendricks that many felt he lost, left UFC 167 on a split decision to retain his welterweight title. He then announced he would vacate that title to take some time away from the sport.
No one knew if he was gone for a fortnight or gone forever, but he was gone for now.
On November 15, 2015 the UFC’s biggest star left without her hand raised. Ronda Rousey, woozy from being on the wrong side of a devastating head kick, lost her title in spectacular fashion at UFC 193 to Holly Holm after looking invincible to that point in her 12-fight career. She made no announcement about time away from the sport, instead comfortable to recede into darkness and watch from afar.
No one knew she’d be gone this long. No one even considered it could be for now or forever. She was just gone, and the sport was left to figure that out by her prolonged silence—certainly something she was never known for during her rise.
There’s a case to be made that those two are the biggest stars the UFC has ever produced, certainly among the biggest to be homegrown by the promotion. They moved units, made millions, made movies and made the sport as close to mainstream as they could on their own. People beyond MMA fans knew who they were at their peaks, and most still would today, despite St-Pierre having been gone nearly three years and Rousey having been gone nearly one.
The key question that links the two megastars is simple: Who will we see back in the cage first? It’s a question that has more meat on its bone than one might think. Much of the matter boils down to the divergent ways each has handled their exile.
St-Pierre was up front from the start, citing OCD and PED-use in the sport as motivations for his leave. When rumblings of a return came about, he denied them, before admitting to doing a test training camp and eventually admitting he’d like to return.
Rousey was different. She went dark. She covered herself with a pillow as paparazzi badgered her for photos of her smashed visage. She’s hardly acknowledged MMA over the course of her time away, instead schmoozing with Ellen DeGeneres in a nice dress or making appearances around the country as That Girl Who Used To Be World Champion.
Neither is the right or wrong way to handle an exile and to suggest otherwise would be crude and obnoxious. People handle adversity differently, and the circumstances around adversity differ for everyone. To contend anyone knows what’s appropriate when their opinions are comfortably uninformed and located on the other side of a keyboard is absurd. Still, the way these two stars are handling the exile may inform what’s ahead for them.
It seems as though St-Pierre has had a process in mind. He’s been transparent, and he's beginning to talk about opponents and dates that aren’t that far off. He’s also 35-years-old now, in a sport that sees legends get old in the time between two fights. Four months can be a lifetime. Three years is the difference between dinosaurs walking the Earth and man walking on the moon. If he doesn’t make with something soon it may be time to get off the pot or risk serious injury.
Rousey’s silence on MMA perhaps says as much as St-Pierre’s planning. She doesn’t run in combative circles anymore, there’s not much word of her training or planning serious training and even the callouts of various nemeses or a new champion are doing little to rouse her. Everyone at bantamweight knows she’s the biggest fight out there when it comes to a payday, herself included. Until she says something one way or the other, she’s going to be the name on the tip of every lady’s tongue.
So here, today, which is most likely to return to the UFC first? You’d have to think St-Pierre. Unless Rousey is using silent exile as some sort of reverse psychology play to make a giant media splash with her return and get that bread, St-Pierre is clearly more interested in competing sometime soon. Based on what new champion Tyron Woodley’s been trumpeting, you easily could see St-Pierre back by the end of 2016.
It’s a weirdly fascinating dichotomy, these two and their possible returns. The biggest stars of their respective times, exiled almost two years to the day from one another, and they still have the interest and drawing power to get the world’s attention at a moment’s notice.
Place your bets, folks. Odds are you’ll see at least one of them again.
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