Issue 089

June 2012

How does returning UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre plan to retain his perch atop the 170lb division? By remaining a student of the game…

Georges St-Pierre “can’t wait.” Can’t wait to feel the cool Octagon canvas under his bare feet as he steps into the UFC’s ‘ultimate proving ground’ for the first time since April 2011. Can’t wait to return to doing what he adores: competing. And he can’t wait to do it as UFC welterweight champion.

For now, though, he rests. Poised for his return to Zuffa’s main events to tackle the new human puzzles emerged over the past 12 months baying for his belt. Recovery from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee has sidelined the 22-2 French-Canadian superstar since December. 

It lost the UFC’s most powerful pay-per-view draw his opportunity to compete against rival Nick Diaz at UFC 143, just as a sprained left knee had nixed a UFC 137 contest with now-interim welterweight champion Carlos Condit seven weeks earlier. 

Physical and emotional discomfort are ever-present reminders of the distance between him and that 32-foot polygon of space inside which only he, his opponent, and one rule keeper are permitted for 25 minutes or less. But he is getting there; it’s tantalizingly close. To have the opportunity to reassert himself as the world’s greatest 170lb fighter? Nirvana.

“It was really hard at the beginning,” confesses St-Pierre, who turns 31 this May. “But you learn from every setback. When you heal a serious injury it also gives you time to heal a lot of small ones. The training that we need to go through to stay on top is really hard on the body – you always have a bruise somewhere.” 

True, but it’s little solace for a man who simply oozes competitive desire. Maybe it’s just this kind of unerring instinct to turn negative into positive that has fueled him through all the smart-talking challengers and challenging threats. Kept St-Pierre’s five-year, six-fight reign as undisputed welterweight belt keeper. Maybe that’s the key to his being perhaps the greatest 170lb’er in UFC history. 

He needs that positivity now more than ever, just as he requires his knee to be entirely rehabilitated before he bounds into the Octagon for the 19th time. And when he competes against his new swathe of challengers. None of whom’s status is a surprise to St-Pierre. They were already part of the elite before he got injured, he praises. “Some of them just climbed the ladder a little higher than others.” 

It all happened innocently enough. So innocent, in fact, neither St-Pierre nor his doctor, Sebastien Simard, believed the takedown defense which had caused a sharp pain and an audible crack from his right knee had torn his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, responsible for stabilizing the knee). It’s clear now to St-Pierre and his team at the lauded Tristar gym in Montreal that they should have paid more heed to medical advice after a prior left knee sprain. That injury caused ‘GSP’ to overcompensate for his weaker appendage in training, his right knee picking up, and ultimately giving in to, the added strain. 

The Canadian underwent an ACL patellar tendon autograft (where a new ACL is created from the patellar tendon) at the renowned Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Southern California. Just as he has so many times in the Octagon, Georges came through with flying colors, this time from under the knife of surgeon Neal S. ElAttrache – who includes megastar and three-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady amongst his patients.

“I am not ahead of schedule but my recovery is going perfect so far,” St-Pierre reveals. “For this kind of surgery, it always takes about six months for your body to incorporate the graft. It’s been five months so far. If everything goes as planned I’ll only start testing my knee training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and wresting in June or July, not before, but maybe later.” For now, it’s rehab time. 

True to his natural impulse to take every opportunity to better himself, he’s been preparing for his comeback at Sports Science Lab in Orange County, California, using stretching, strength exercises, and water therapy to coax the world-class athlete inside his unassuming, boy-next-door exterior to fight fitness. But if there’s one lesson ‘Rush’ has learned from this whole ordeal it’s to give his body more time to rest, he says.

Personal reflections, reevaluations, and recollections such as this are both valuable and vital, especially in a game as dependent on mental strength as MMA. Perseverance is one of the champion’s many traits that lead him to UFC glory, first in 2006 and then again in 2008 after unifying his interim gold with Matt Serra’s official title. Today, perseverance is helping him through these long months of rehab. He attributes his acquisition of the psychological tool to his years learning Kyokushin karate, which he began to study aged seven from his father, Roland, at their home in St Isidore, Quebec, a town with a population of just over 2,000. 

Georges says: “Martial arts teaches you many things in life, to be structured, organized, respectful, on time, consistent, perseverant. You’ll need all these things in every aspect of your life and fortunately, I learned them at a very young age.” He’d spent his childhood years at the mercy of school bullies, who went as far as stealing young Georges’ money and clothes. His acne and intellect are among the, unfortunately typical, catalysts. 

Emotional scars, of varying severity, remain to this day on the psyche of one of mixed martial arts’ pound-for-pound best. “For sure, bullying played a role in defining who I am and have become,” says Georges. “It’s something I will always carry with me. I believe that all the decisions I made in my life made me who I am today and bullying is one of many things that influenced those decisions. Every person you meet during a given day is made of thousands of decisions.” 

Georges attributes deciding to study Kyokushin karate with saving his life. You get the sense that St-Pierre, who seems to tie intimately his champion today with his tormented yesterday, truly believes his existence could have spiraled down a different path had he been left to suffer the daily trauma that undoes so many young spirits. It’s hard to imagine St-Pierre as anything other than a note-perfect, clean-cut MMA ambassador and impeccable athlete – but perhaps it mightn’t have been. Without his parents’ support, father’s early tutelage, and mother Pauline’s attendance at fights, maybe there would be no Georges St-Pierre UFC welterweight champion of the world.

Though he’s locked into his role as a revered 170lb kingpin, St-Pierre remains a highly keen student of martial arts. That intelligence shines through. Does the cool Quebecois – just as popular with the females as he is die-hard male MMA fans – perhaps, classify himself as a geek? “I do. I always treat my managers as geeks because they work with numbers and laws all the time, but they always reply to me that I am the geek in the group,” he says. 

“The reason they say that is because I am obsessed with martial arts and I am always thinking, practicing, reading, visualizing, and dreaming about it. They see me the same way as a researcher in his basement working on a particular project [for] days and nights. When I think about it, I can see myself as a geek that passes his life researching about fighting strategies.” 

Though the specific self-proclamation as a geek may be lighthearted, his dedication to his art is sincere and intense. However, it’s hard to tell, both from the mannerisms and the speech of the guarded champion, if his studiousness, in an effort to better his understanding, is a result of a simple love for his profession, or a dread of being outperformed in the ring. 

This potentially constant state of underlying anxiety makes GSP a fascinating mental subject. On the one hand, you have the Freddie Roach boxing pupil who, the indomitable trainer says, has admitted to drilling his newly taught hand skills in front of the mirror overnight ready for the Wild Card gym the next day. That suggests passion rather than fear. 

But, St-Pierre has said that in the wake of his succession of injuries, and the consequent time spent out of the Octagon has meant he no longer feels as if he is the champion, that he has to work to regain his title. 

“I have not fought since April, against my will, but I understand the champion must fight,” he said earlier this year. “You have to put the belt on the line in order to call yourself a champion, the best in the world. Right now I am not the best in the world, I am injured.”

It's a highly uncommon sentiment from an incumbent title holder; who are usually men eager to remind all of their superiority and status at any opportunity. It echoes almost self-deprecating rhetoric from the persistently successful welterweight hero prior to all six of his seemingly effortless championship defenses post-Matt Serra UFC 83 title retention. Many believe St-Pierre had massively underrated the stocky New Yorker in suffering a first-round knockout loss to the heavy-handed UFC veteran at UFC 69 in 2007, who won his shot at the title with victory on the fourth season of The Ultimate Fighter. 

St-Pierre felt he was the better fighter and struggled to come to terms with the loss. Work with a sports psychologist since that bout has righted his course, going undefeated in eight contests. St-Pierre’s take on the concept of respect and martial arts is, perhaps, telling. “Respect is one of the main values that you are taught when practicing martial arts,” he says. “When you stop respecting others, especially skill-wise, you’ll probably start the downward slope of losing.” 

It’s easy to wonder if constantly honing his game, his highly effective self-analysis and downplaying his pre-fight odds are actually some-way manufactured mental scare tactics. Not to lie to us, but to lie to himself. To push himself to success by erasing any chance of becoming complacent; to become happy with his skills and then be caught out. Just another example of his competitive desire? Could be. Could even be more basic. 

Potentially, it has less to do with competition and more about simple advancement. As of now, St-Pierre wants to return a better fighter. “This is my goal,” he admits. “But this has always been my goal. I don’t know any professional fighter or athlete that wants the status quo. The only way to stay at the top is to get better every day.”

And that he has. He’s the fighter who avenged his only two MMA defeats of a 10-year career long ago. He’s the karateka the aforementioned Freddie Roach classifies as the best boxer in MMA, save for middleweight fight wizard Anderson Silva. 

He’s the mixed martial arts champion who seriously entertained trying to compete for Canada in wrestling at the 2012 London Olympics. And he’s the current UFC welterweight king – even if, in his eyes, he has to regain that in the Octagon.

But at least now he has a date. November 17th, Montreal, UFC 154. A gleaming, purifying and, most importantly, nearing opportunity to validate of his right to call himself the best in the world.

Although last time he entered training camp he was expecting Nick Diaz to be staring at him across the Octagon on fight night, this November it will be some-time training partner Carlos Condit, possessor of the UFC welterweight interim title GSP himself once owned. “For sure,” says St-Pierre, when asked if he still has the itch to compete against Diaz. “I’ll always want to test myself against the best, and Nick Diaz is one of them. But now Carlos is the best, and he will have all my focus.” We’re absolutely certain he will.

The Notorious GSP: St-Pierre's guide to hip-hop

UFC 129, April 2011

FOUGHT: Jake Shields

TRACK: Youssoupha (feat. Arsenik and Mams), "Ne Compare Pas"

A rousing, powerful number bursting with attitude. The title translates to ‘does not compare.’ Rather fitting, then, to allow St-Pierre the correct mindset to down another contender.

UFC 124, December 2010

FOUGHT: Josh Koscheck

TRACK: La Fouine (feat. Sefyu and Soprano), "Ça Fait Mal"

While his UFC 129 track could nod to empowerment, Ça Fait Mal, or ‘it hurts’, is an altogether darker tune. Featuring plenty of lines that perhaps aren’t fit for print, less explicit lines (‘For the buds I’ve always got two or three bitches/For the jealous, always two or three bullets’) suggest a desire to provoke his fiercer side as he made his entrance. Maybe Koscheck’s taunts did get under St-Pierre’s skin.

UFC 111, March 2010

FOUGHT: Dan Hardy

TRACK: The Notorious BIG, "Juicy"

He may have been St-Pierre’s greatest mental challenge, but there appears to be little mental ‘zoning’ with this old-school classic from the late Biggie Smalls. A recollection of Smalls’ journey from a life dealing drugs to his status as a successful rapper, perhaps beyond the infectious beat St-Pierre is drawing strength and inspiration from the parallels to his own rise from bullied school child to famous mixed martial arts champion.