Georges St-Pierre opens up on health condition that led to retirement: 'I thought maybe I had cancer'

Georges St-Pierre reveals his move up to middleweight is what caused him to hang up his gloves.

St-Pierre took a four-year hiatus in 2013 where he relinquished his welterweight belt after nine title defenses. He then returned in November 2017 to challenge Michael Bisping for the middleweight title at UFC 217.

Although he was successful in his pursuit of becoming two-division champion, it was the process to get to 185 pounds that hampered him physically. St-Pierre developed ulcerative colitis when trying to put on weight, which caused him to relinquish his middleweight title and ultimately retire just over a month after beating Bisping.

“The reason why I really retired is because it took a lot out of me, and I started developing a condition called ulcerative colitis,” St-Pierre said on the “Pound 4 Pound” podcast. “It’s an inflammation of the intestine and my last fight when I fought Bisping, I tried to eat, to gain weight, and I have a very hard time gaining weight. I forced myself to eat and maybe the doctor told me that’s probably why I developed that.”

St-Pierre turned to intermittent fasting to cure what he initially thought was a life-threatening disease.

“When I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, in terms of stress, I got relieved, but also I started doing intermittent fasting, and it cured all my symptoms,” St-Pierre continued. “I’m no longer on medication. I used to be on severe medication. I used to go to bathroom and it was a lot of blood, I thought maybe I had cancer.

“But I was telling myself during training camp I was like, ‘Whatever it is, I’m going to wait until the end of the fight’ because to find out what it is, you need to do what they call a colonoscopy. It’s a camera they put and for that they put you on laxative, and I was trying to gain weight not to lose weight. So, I was like whatever it is, I’m going to fight and see what it is after.”