Aug-6-2008
Georges St-Pierre: In no ‘Rush’ to leave the limelight
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By Elliot Worsell
Georges ‘Rush’ St-Pierre is as bilingual inside the Octagon as he is outside it. He speaks French to family and friends, Portuguese when honing his jiu-jitsu in Brazil and English when dealing with the majority of the world’s media. He stopped Matt Serra with knees, Matt Hughes via armbar and Frank Trigg via rear naked choke. You’d be hard pressed to find a weakness in GSP’s MMA arsenal or his adaptability to culture. Well-rounded. Faultless.
Midway through this interview, French-Canadian superstar St-Pierre gets me to repeat a question. “Limelight?” he asks, stumbling on a word he’s never previously encountered. “What’s limelight? I never heard that before.”
St-Pierre’s bilingual, sure, but every now and again a new word shakes him up. “It means ‘attention’,” I reply. St-Pierre instantly gets the question and his brain structures a seamless translation from French to English and then back to my notepad.
The irony in St-Pierre’s confusion over the term ‘limelight’ is there for all to see. After all, as reigning UFC welterweight king and arguably one of the top three pound-for-pound MMA stars to walk the planet, GSP is very much in the limelight. Not that it means all that much to the amiable St-Pierre.
“I get noticed a little bit but not too much – it’s perfect like that,” he explains. “I like to have a low-profile life. I’m a shy person. I get noticed more in the United States than in Quebec because most of my fights are in the USA. I try and use the attention I get as a positive thing to make me train even harder and stay champion.”
In an MMA career spanning over six years, St-Pierre has used his increasing attention to good effect. He’s built a record of 16-2, soared to the top of the welterweight division and feasted on a who’s who of leading UFC stars. Nevertheless, the soft-spoken and deep-thinking St-Pierre speaks from experience. When he talks about staying as champion he knows how hard it will be. When he describes the importance of focus he’s referring to past horrors. Demons.
Amid his mostly glittering career, St-Pierre has seen a couple of ‘limelight’s – a couple of clunkers, mistakes, slip-ups, moments of misunderstanding and confusion. Their names were Matt Hughes and Matt Serra.
“It’s always harder to stay as champion, especially for me because I so badly want to succeed where I failed last time,” explains St-Pierre, who avenged both defeats in dominant fashion. “I’m much more experienced now and I’ve learnt from my mistakes. It won’t happen again. I’ve become a better and stronger fighter after each defeat in my career.”
Bad news for the welterweight division, one suspects. Following first round losses to Hughes in 2004 and Serra in 2007, St-Pierre has since transformed into a new model of MMA fighting machine. Well-versed in every single department – stand-up, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, you name it – St-Pierre is the definitive MMA template, more so even than fellow pound-for-pound candidates Anderson Silva and BJ Penn. He’s athletic, strong, quick and powerful. There’s an almost mechanical, robotic aura to the way St-Pierre goes about shutting down opponents. When thinking of the ‘look’ of an MMA fighter in the mind’s eye it will produce an image of a French-Canadian with a shaven head and million-dollar smile.
On August 9 at UFC 87, St-Pierre will face the toughest test of his career so far. The ultimate test of his versatility. The ultimate test of his multilingualism. Opposing him in Minneapolis, Minnesota will be welterweight dangerman Jon Fitch, a competitor St-Pierre holds the utmost respect for.
“Fitch is the best opponent I’ve faced so far,” St-Pierre admits. “He’s a new breed of mixed martial arts fighter. He’s not an old school guy who only learns one type of discipline. He’s very well-rounded and is good in all aspects. As well as being well-rounded he’s also a big guy (for welterweight) and is very brave.”
A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fitch is probably the most in-form and improving fighter in the UFC today. Seemingly getting stronger, faster and more dominant from performance to performance, Fitch has already snared the scalps of standouts Thiago Alves, Diego Sanchez, Josh Burkman and Roan Carneiro. Unbeaten in his UFC career – a run spanning eight fights and equalling Royce Gracie’s UFC record – Fitch figures to bring the best out of St-Pierre on August 9. For Georges, it’s not even a question. It’s a necessity.
“I know I’ll have to be better than I’ve ever been before because Jon Fitch is dangerous,” concedes the champion. “I think he’s a better fighter than Matt Serra and that’s why I’ll have to be even better than I was against Serra in Montreal.”
Amongst the humility, the unassuming nature and the respect lauded upon Fitch, there remains a steely confidence in everything St-Pierre says. The better the fighter the less need for talk – whether of the trash variety or the kind of superfluous ramblings used to conceal deficiencies in confidence. St-Pierre knows he’s good.
“I’m in the best shape of my life, physically and mentally,” he says. “On August 9 I’m going to be the best Georges St-Pierre there’s ever been. I’m even better than I was in my last fight against Serra. I’ve improved a lot since then.
“I think I’m better than Fitch in every aspect of the game but there’s only one place to truly find out and that’s inside the Octagon. I feel as though I have an answer to everything he does but will need a good gameplan to carry it out.”
A good skill set? Check. A good gameplan? Check. A quality opponent to align the necessary focus? Check. All the signs are there. The only tangible nemesis, road block or banana skin to St-Pierre’s continuing form is the lure of bigger fights, bigger moments in the sun. He’s been there before, of course, and realises the importance of keeping the eye on the ball – or fist. The names BJ Penn and Anderson Silva mean nothing to St-Pierre at this moment in time.
“I always learn from my mistakes,” he says. “I’m not perfect and there’s always room for improvement. I don’t want to look past Jon Fitch and think about other fights. I’m the sort of person that never makes the same mistake twice. Jon Fitch is my main concern right now and he’s the only other fighter I’m thinking about.”
Whether the mega fights happen for St-Pierre is neither here nor there right now. One thing’s for sure, though, if they do they’ll take place in St-Pierre’s home, his domain - 170 pounds.
“I make the weight very easy,” he admits. “It’s no problem at all. I walk around at 186 or 187 pounds and have no difficulty getting down to welterweight.”
Welterweights be warned – St-Pierre’s going to be around for a while. And if you’re looking for someone to blame for his impending period of domination, look no further than a muscle-bound actor from Belgium.
“Growing up I was a big fan of Jean Claude Van Damme and martial arts movies and I wanted to learn martial arts to help me defend myself at school,” says St-Pierre, explaining what made him the animal he is today.
“I had a tough childhood, lots of trouble at school, but I never let it make me become a bad person. I did martial arts because I love it – that was the main reason. My father used to be a kyokushin karate black belt and so martial arts was always in my family. It helped me learn how to defend myself when I needed to. I love competing as long as it is as a part of martial arts – with rules. I don’t like fighting in the streets. I only ever fight to defend myself.
“In the first UFC I watched Royce Gracie was fighting. After that it was Matt Hughes and Randy Couture. Those were the guys that were inspiring me when I was growing up.”
Fast-forward a decade and the next batch of starry-eyed UFC superstars will be name-checking a French-Canadian known as GSP when pressed with the same question. It’s inevitable. A given.
St-Pierre better get used to the limelight.
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