In the six weeks since his fight with Georges St-Pierre was announced, Michael Bisping has been pontificating about the former welterweight champion’s return in interviews and on social media. The middleweight champion has said that St-Pierre wants the fight because he thinks it’s an easy win. He also said that GSP has no intention of defending the belt (should he win it), but will instead chase a super-fight with Conor McGregor. Bisping even threatened to deny St-Pierre the title shot and give it to Yoel Romero if St-Pierre wouldn’t hurry up and agree to a date in July.

During all of this, St-Pierre has mostly remained mum about Bisping, but that silence ended over the weekend when Montreal’s native son spoke with RT Sport, responding to “The Count’s” comments. He also spoke about why he feels now is the time to make the move to 185 pounds despite his reluctance to do so during his run as the welterweight champion.

“I never was interested in moving up a division because I had a lot of work to do,” St-Pierre said. “Every time I finished a fight, I had another challenger coming at me and I also blew out the ACL in my knee. I had an injury, so I took some time off and I had to come back and right away defend the title again. Also one of the reasons is the weight. I’m not a big welterweight. I’m an average/middle-sized welterweight. Now that I have some time off, I took some time to gain a little bit of weight and make sure it’s well done.

“I’ve never been afraid to compete at 185 [pounds]. It’s not to fight at 185, the problem is when you train, you need to train with bigger guys and in order to train with bigger guys, it has more chance to have injuries. So that’s the thing. But now is the perfect opportunity for me to do it. I had some time off. I took some time to gain some weight. I’m still putting on some weight.”

Despite gaining weight for the fight, St-Pierre will still be giving up a good amount of size to Bisping, who won The Ultimate Fighter at light heavyweight and competed in that division for years. But St-Pierre isn’t worried because he believes the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

“Of course Michael Bisping will be bigger than me but I believe that will be the only advantage that he will have — his size. Technically, tactically, athletically, I have all the edges on him. It doesn’t matter if he’s taller and bigger than me. The only difference that it’s gonna make is when he hits the floor, it’s gonna make a bigger boom.”

St-Pierre explained that the reason a date for the fight is still up in the air is due to some clearances and “other things” with USADA, though he expects the fight will take place in the summer. As for Bisping’s threats to fight Romero if he isn’t ready for July, GSP said it’s a bluff.

“I think he’s lying,” he said. “I know he wants to fight me and I want to fight him and this fight’s gonna give him more money. It comes down to his decision but if he wants to do it, I’m down to do it. That’s who I’m getting ready for. If things change, I’m gonna have to turn around and do a quick turnaround but no problem. I can do it. But he’s the man, he’s the one that has the belt. For me, he’s [got] the highest stock right now and I always aim for the high area.”

One of Bisping’s contentions was that GSP would win the belt and then go moonlighting outside the division. Namely, that St-Pierre will try and fight Demian Maia for the welterweight title (assuming Maia beats current champion Tyron Woodley) and then go for his third belt by fighting Conor McGregor. And though this master plan has picked up steam among the fans, St-Pierre remained coy when discussing the big picture.

“It’s a very ambitious plan [Bisping laid out],” he said. “I have a plan in the back of my head but I’m not gonna talk about it right now because I’m not a talker, I’m a doer. A lot of people need to talk to promote themselves. Everybody knows who’s who here. I’m not a new fighter. They know who I am. My fights talk by themselves, my resume talks by [itself]. It’s gonna depend on what’s gonna happen and how it’s gonna happen when I fight Michael Bisping. When this fight will be finished, I will go to reorient my career but it could be anything.

For a man who “always aims for the high area” an ambitious plan like that might make a whole lot of sense.

MUST-READ STORIES

Results. UFC on Fox 24 happened on Saturday and here are the results.

Results II. Bellator 177 also happened last weekend and those results are here.

GOAT. Dana White said “It’s hard not to call Demetrious Johnson the greatest of all time.’

Title. After knocking out Jacare, robert Whittaker says he’s ready for the title.

Eight. Before he got knocked out on Saturday night, Ronaldo Souza signed an 8 fight UFC deal.

Ultimatum. Cris Cyborg calls for the UFC to schedule her for a fight or release her from her contract.

VIDEO STEW

Presser.

TTTHS. double dose.

DC on TMZ.

And T-Wood talking Rumble retirement.

The full ACB 57 is here. All 5 hours of it if you’re feeling froggy.

Do yourself a favor and watch this. Sabina Mazo hit an outlandish KO at LFA 9.

LISTEN UP

Three Amigos. Interviews with Demetrious Johnson and Jason Parillo.

Beatdown After the Bell. Breen and De Santis discuss the night of fights.

6th Round. Zane Simon and Eddie Mercado talk DJ’s dominance and the rest.

Bushido Talk. UFC Fight Night: Johnson vs. Reis afterthoughts.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

P4P kings sharing the love.

@MightyMouseUFC congrats on your win — Hi-Tech Lomachenko (@VasylLomachenko) April 17, 2017

Fans may not like him but fighters all respect the hell out of the man.

Demetrius "Mighty Mouse " Johnson you have it all my man speed, power, heart and mental discipline. Congrats — Sugar Ray Leonard (@SugarRayLeonard) April 17, 2017

Last dude to really put it on DJ.

Wow...just wow. @MightyMouseUFC so proud to have share the cage with that man. I wish I could get healthy enough to give him another fight — Ian McCall (@Unclecreepymma) April 16, 2017

That was a very long time ago, @MightyMouseUFC has done amazing things since then ... I ... umm well I suck now so ya haha https://t.co/pwbNJuMDlv — Ian McCall (@Unclecreepymma) April 16, 2017

Lol.

Cornering @MightyMouseUFC must be easy. Every round: "What you did in that last round. Do it again." — Matt Brown (@IamTheImmortal) April 16, 2017

And of course, Bisping is having a field day with this despite the fact that Bobby Knux would beat Bisping like he owed him money.

Well done Whitaker. Unlucky jacare. Chat shit, get banged! — michael (@bisping) April 16, 2017

Now will please shut the hell up and stay off my instagram page. A post shared by Mikebisping (@mikebisping) on Apr 15, 2017 at 6:35pm PDT

Nicknames are an organic thing. And “The Reaper” is lame. Bobby Knux forever.

Robert Whittaker shoots down the Bobby Knuckles nickname. He likes "The Reaper" #UFCKansasCity — Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) April 16, 2017

Class.

Thank @TElliott125 and #kansascity for a great experience, I gave it my all guys, good luck to Tim in the future #ufckansascity pic.twitter.com/pmwKRZeRxK — Louis Smolka (@LASTSAMURAIUFC) April 15, 2017

Absolutely savage.

@dc_mma do you really think I took steroids or is that just another thing you tell yourself to sleep better after I made u forever my bitch — Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) April 15, 2017

Almost equally as ruthless.

U hid from usada bruh. Yes u did steroids. You have always done steroids. U tried to cheat me. So shut ur bum ass up. https://t.co/KFfVvd7feA — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) April 15, 2017

And then DC also took a shot at Jimi.

U better keep my name out of your mouth homie. Dana would be sending a lamb to slaughter. Btw nice white shorts! https://t.co/S7YdRuENq0 — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) April 14, 2017

The man said he was the best fisherman in MMA.

#bestfishermaninmma #bestwrestlerinmma #bestfighterinfishing #fishingwiththegift #bass #largemouth A post shared by Gregor gillespie (@gregorthegift) on Apr 15, 2017 at 6:05am PDT

A lot of greatness in that picture.

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Vanessa Porto (18-7) vs. Agnieszka Niedzwiedz (9-0); Invicta FC 23, May 20.

Viviane Pereira (12-0) vs. Jamie Moyle (4-1); UFC 212, June 3.

TODAY IN MMA HISTORY

2009: Bellator held its third event which ended up serving as Bellator 3 and 4 for television purposes, due to regulatory issues preventing the planned event from taking that place. Half of the bouts from this event were televised on April 18 and the other half were televised on April 25. Most notably, this event featured the Bellator debut of Hector Lombard who would go on to become the promotion’s inaugural middleweight champion.

2010: Jake Shields overcame a rough first round to dominate Dan Henderson at Strikeforce: Nashville, winning a unanimous decision and the Strikeforce middleweight title. That night also saw Gilbert Melendez retain the lightweight title by winning a unanimous decision over Shinya Aoki, as well as Muhammed Lawal taking the light heavyweight title from Gegard Mousasi. But the evening is perhaps best known for the brawl that broke out in the cage after the main event between Jason Miller and the Cesar Gracie team, as well as Gus Johnson’s infamous comments as it happened: “Sometimes, these things happen in MMA.”

FINAL THOUGHTS

Man, DJ is really something else. Wilson Reis is a very respectable guy who has fought as high as 145 pounds and DJ ate all of his cookies. You may think Jon Jones or Anderson Silva are better than him historically, but you damn sure better respect his skills.

And we’re back for the biggest fight weekend of the year. That’s right, it’s Lobov time! Enjoy your Monday’s and see y’all tomorrow.

If you find something you'd like to see in the Morning Report, just hit me up on Twitter @JedKMeshew and let me know about it. Also follow MMAFighting on Instagram and add us on Snapchat at MMA-Fighting because we post dope things and you should enjoy it.