Sports

UFC’s St-Pierre on distaste for women’s MMA: ‘I feel sorry for the girl who got beat up’

Georges St-Pierre doesn’t like women’s MMA. It’s not that he thinks women don’t belong in a cage or that they are not as capable as men. He just can’t stand the sight of a woman getting punched and kicked.

“The problem is when I watch two guys fighting and one guy is gonna get hurt and get knocked out, I’m gonna watch the technique and say that’s beautiful technique,” the UFC welterweight champion told The Post. “But my heart as a man, when I watch two women fighting … instead of saying beautiful technique, I feel sorry for the girl who got beat up.”

St-Pierre said he didn’t watch the first UFC women’s bout Feb. 23 between champion Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche. Not because he was making a silent protest. He was just busy preparing for his own fight March 16 against Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in Montreal.

GSP did say he saw highlights and commended Rousey for her excellent armbar technique. But something – “maybe I’m an old-school guy” – is stopping him from truly getting into women’s MMA.

“In my heart, I’m protective of a woman,” St-Pierre said. “Seeing a woman get hit, I feel like I have to protect them.”

St-Pierre, 31, has made similar comments in the past and Rousey fired back in January with remarks that GSP was a boring fighter.

“He fights to win matches,” Rousey told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “He doesn’t fight to defeat his opponents.”

Rousey did say she respects St-Pierre as a “businessman and an athlete.” GSP thinks some of the resentment toward him comes from the fact that Rousey is friends and a sometimes training partner of his rival Diaz.

“Maybe she can give me some tips to be more exciting,” St-Pierre said with a laugh.

GSP, regarded as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, added that he is open minded and that there’s a chance his feelings about women fighting could turn around since it’s becoming more and more prevalent. And now obviously it’s going to become a part of the UFC regularly.

“Maybe it’s gonna go away with time,” St-Pierre said. “Ronda Rousey does have very beautiful technique.”

mraimondi@nypost.com