Kevin Lee calls for title fight with GSP at 165-pounds
Kevin Lee wants to fight Georges St-Pierre at a new weight class of 165 pounds.
Kevin Lee is adamant that the UFC should add a 165-pound division to its rankings, and ‘The Motown Phenom’ has an opponent in mind for his divisional debut.
Speaking with The Straits Times last week, top-five lightweight contender Lee called out former two-division champ Georges St-Pierre for a title fight at 165 lbs.
“The 155lb and 170lb (divisions) are so messed up right now,” Lee said. “You’ve got three titles between the two divisions already, so they’ve got to add another weight class.
”I think me and Georges for the 165lb title makes the most amount of sense. You do Conor [McGregor] and Khabib [Nurmagomedov] in October, you do me and Georges in November, at Madison Square Garden.
”And maybe you do Tyron [Woodley] and Colby [Covington] to figure out the 170lb division.”
Lee, 25, has struggled to make weight in the past, barely making the cut for his interim lightweight title bout with Tony Ferguson at UFC 216 and weighing in two pounds overweight earlier this year at UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs. Lee.
The surging talent has trained with St-Pierre in the past and has a tremendous amount of respect for the Canadian, which is why he wants to test his skills against one of the greatest of all time.
”We started in the same first promotion, we had the same first manager, we have the same management (Creative Artists Agency) now,” Lee said of the parallels between him and GSP.
”There are so many parallels to us now, that I think that adds even more intrigue to the fight
”It will be the hardest fight of my career, it’ll be the biggest challenge But, as soon as I get back home from UFC Singapore, I’m going to go back and figure out how to beat the man.”
It has been teased that St-Pierre, the former welterweight and middleweight champ, is interested in dropping down to lightweight to pursue a third world title, so a fight with Lee isn’t completely off the table.
With that said, ‘Rush’ is more interested in cementing his legacy against an opponent of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s caliber, rather than an up and coming talent like Lee.
Lee, who trains out of Xtreme Couture, is 6-1 in his last seven fights, losing only to former interim lightweight champ ‘El Cucuy’ at UFC 216. The likelihood of Ultimate Fighting Championship adding a 165-pound weight class is slim, so Lee will probably go on to face the winner of next month’s lightweight rematch between Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier at UFC on FOX 30.