GSP on Alves: ‘Biggest Challenge of My Career’

UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, having grown weary of answering questions related to his immediate past, has turned his attention toward the next formidable challenge placed in his path -- Thiago Alves.

“Thiago Alves, no doubt, is the biggest challenge of my career,” St. Pierre told Sherdog.com in an exclusive video interview. “He has done stuff nobody has done before. It’s going to be a very, very tough fight.”

Alves (16-3) has rattled off seven consecutive wins, the last three against top 10 welterweights Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. Ten of the 25-year-old Brazilian destroyer’s 16 career victories have come by knockout or technical knockout, as he has emerged as perhaps the most-feared striker in the welterweight division.

St. Pierre (18-2) throttled lightweight titleholder B.J. Penn in their hyped UFC 94 rematch in January and will carry a five-fight winning streak into his next bout. Allegations of “greasing” continue to dog the 27-year-old Canadian in wake of his rout of Penn, which saw him pass the Hawaiian’s feared guard with surprising ease en route to a fourth-round TKO. Penn declined to come out of his corner for the fifth round.

“He said I was a quitter,” St. Pierre said. “I’m not the one who didn’t come back for the fifth round.”

Check out Greg Savage’s full interview with St. Pierre and watch the welterweight king discuss the Vaseline controversy involving cornermen Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson, along with what direction he thinks Penn should head after the most lopsided loss of his career.