With obstacles cleared, can UFC book superfight between Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre?

• Silva seems to have warmed up to the idea
• St-Pierre has gone back and forth on the possible dream matchup
• St-Pierre spoke of 'vacation' after UFC 154; UFC boss Dana White has said May is a possible date

MONTREAL – You know those sitcoms in which the two obvious love interests take multiple seasons to inch closer to some type of relationship, milking the romantic tension for every ounce of ratings before finally doing something about it? Well, this thing between UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva is starting to feel a little like that, only more frustrating and slightly less predictable.

Coming into this weekend, there seemed to be but one major obstacle to this champion vs. champion superfight, and that was Carlos Condit. Then "GSP" spent five rounds reasserting his dominance in a bloody decision win, and suddenly the path was cleared. So it seemed, anyway. It's just that, the more St-Pierre is asked about a potential fight with Silva, the less interested he sounds.

Silva has sure warmed to the idea. He met with reporters backstage at Montreal's Bell Centre shortly before UFC 154 got underway and played the part of the company man, just eager to do whatever he could to help out.

"Georges St-Pierre for my next fight? Maybe," Silva said. "Jon Jones? No. This is not real. But this is not my decision. It's Dana's decision. I'm here for fight. I work for UFC."

Silva hasn't always sounded quite so willing to be a team player, but maybe it all depends what kind of a mood you catch him in. Sometimes he wants to pick and choose, other times he'd have us believe he's little more than a wind-up toy for UFC president Dana White to point in whatever direction he chooses.

To hear White tell it, that's just Silva "messing" with those of us in the media, which seems plausible enough. When beating up other professional fighters is so easy, you've probably got to find new ways of entertaining yourself. Plus, there might be financial upsides to a certain brand of messing around. As Silva's longtime manager Ed Soares said on Saturday night, the middleweight champ has two fights left on his current contract, "and that's what we'll talk to Dana about."

In other words, there might have to be some sweetening of the pot involved to make this superfight happen. That pot might have to get even sweeter for St-Pierre, who spent much of the post-fight press conference deflecting talk about Silva and chiding the people who spent the lead-up to this fight talking about it for being "disrespectful" to Condit. He didn't shoot down the superfight talk, but neither did he come anywhere close to expressing enthusiasm about it. The only time he got worked up about it at all was when he was either complaining about the media obsession with it or wondering out loud whether Silva couldn't make 170 pounds rather than forcing him to go up for a catchweight bout (Silva himself had suggested 177 pounds, offering to meet in the middle). Even if "GSP" never said no, he also didn't say yes.

But then, as White pointed out after the presser, some of that could be a result of when he was asked about the idea.

"I don't think 'GSP' is too jazzed about anything right now," White said. "His head's all lumped up, his hands hurt. He was tired in that fifth round. He said it tonight, what I've been saying leading up to this fight, the only way you stay in fighting shape is by fighting."

That sentiment was corroborated by St-Pierre himself, or at least the part about the physical damage was. After showing up to the press conference in a three-piece suit and with an ice pack pressed to his swollen, discolored face, he told reporters, "I just got hit. I need some vacation before I make a decision."

That brings us back to the varying perspectives on the prospect of a superfight. White would have us believe that GSP wants to stay busy to stay in fighting shape, and yet here's St-Pierre throwing around words like "vacation." The UFC prez said he's eyeing a potential May date for the fight, possibly in Toronto, Dallas, or Brazil, though, he added, "I wouldn't rule out that Georges fights one more time and then fights Anderson."

Sounds like a busy schedule for a man on vacation. Still, there are the things you say right after you've been kicked in the head on live TV, and then there are things you think once you've had a few weeks to think about it.

That's White's hope, anyway. He said he planned to give his welterweight champ about 10 days before picking up the phone, and a lot can happen in 10 days, especially in this business. Bruises heal, momentum builds, pots that already pretty sweet get even sweeter. That sort of thing. And so it happens that, with all the urgency of an advancing glacier, two of the UFC's most dominant champions move closer to what could wind up being the organization's biggest fight – a "legacy fight" for both men, according to White.

Who knows? Give them enough time and the right motivation, and you might even get the two champions to say yes to the same weight at the same time. With this one, something tells me the slow march to get there will feel justified once we finally arrive at the destination.

Ben Fowlkes writes for MMAJunkie.com, a USA TODAY Sports Media property.