Jul-8-2009
Georges St-Pierre interested in one thing - staying there
|
UFC Mens Force Polo Shirt
|
|
By Chuck Mindenhall
There are certain merits that come from having been on the wrong end of the puncher’s chance, just as George St-Pierre was against Matt Serra at UFC 69. For one, the word “complacency” is already obsolete—it might as well be Latin to the 28-year-old French-Canadian. There’s also the small matter of hearing your name echoed forever in the optimist’s chorus—“look what happened to St-Pierre . . . if it can happen to him it can happen to anybody.”
It’s what gets an underdog out of bed.
But think a minute about what being involved in that kind of proverb does for the welterweight champion, St-Pierre—a self-described “proud champion.” When you’re the example, the reminder is pretty personal. It’s a lesson. It’s what materializes the shadow of a doubt. And it all comes together to become a sort of kryptonite against complacency—it becomes motivation.
“They work their whole life to get their shot?” he says of the string of contenders that includes Jon Fitch, BJ Penn and now Thiago Alves. “I’ve been working my whole life to be there and stay there.”
This last bit is the appended portion—staying there. That’s the crux, and he knows it’s what validates a champion and preserves his name in the history books. Georges St-Pierre has become the most well-rounded fighter in mixed martial arts in the interest of preservation.
GSP is quick to remind you that well-rounded doesn’t mean universally fluent in technique. That would be impossible to his mind, even for somebody who out-wrestles wrestlers and out-strikes strikers. Even for somebody who, when going up against a master in the art of eight limbs, intends to deploy twelve.
“I do believe you don’t have enough of a lifetime to learn everything in martial arts,” he says. “It would take maybe hundreds of lives, but I do believe that as long as I compete I will get better.”
Still in his twenties, that leaves a lot of room for improvement for the one-time garbage man. It helps that he’s an obsessive strategist—I mean, it’s one thing to study opponents, and it’s another to completely understand opponents. To internalize their habits so that he may exploit their weaknesses.
“I break down everybody [on film],” he says. “To talk about strategy—when you play cards you don’t want to show your hand, you know?”
Yes, and here’s what we know—it seems he’s always holding a full-boat. St-Pierre develops game plans with Greg Jackson and company that are just as hunch specific as forensic science. Remember the early clinchwork that would deplete Penn’s blood supply to the shoulders, as an example. Once Penn’s hands were down he could pick him apart—and he did. Just as they drew it up.
To keep his belt this time he will have to stave off the fast-encroaching contender Thiago Alves (22-4), whom St-Pierre genuinely considers his toughest task to date. When you have an 18-2 record and wins over Sherk, Hughes, Serra, Koscheck and Trigg, that’s no kind of soft praise.
“He’s a great, great striker,” he says. “A good left hook, a good leg kick and very dangerous knees. And he’s sharp on the ground, too—it’s going to be a tough fight. He’s very well-rounded. I always expect the worst. Five five-minute rounds of very intense fighting. I see myself with my arm raised at the end of the fight.”
You get the feeling that when St-Pierre throws out the two recurrent words to describe the “Pitbull”—“great” and “dangerous”—it has nothing to do with hyperbole. Remember, Alves, too, beat Hughes and Koscheck. That he doesn’t sling much mud not only makes Alves more dangerous, it makes him more gentlemanly, a bona-fide pistols at dawn man . . . and it’s something that St-Pierre admires in a foe.
After the media circus that preceded the Penn superfight at UFC 94, St-Pierre has trained in relative quiet in his native Montreal, down in Albuquerque with Jackson and in New York. To help prep his Muay Thai work, he brought in Jean-Charles Skarbowski from France, a renowned practitioner. He’s training in the eye of the storm this time through.
Yet, when you’re Georges St-Pierre, a lack of cameras only heightens a sense of peril.
“I’m so focused, I’m aware of the danger,” he says, before turning the Yoda-trick of introducing a paradox. “The danger is even more there when there is nothing around. It’s more peaceful. But Alves doesn’t trash talk, he doesn’t have to. He’s very confident in himself and he’s a very good fighter. The night of the fight we have to fight to win, and we got to try to work each other and knock each other out. It’s going to be a fight. It’s a very dangerous fight.”
And he has been bracing for that danger since, oh, early-February—just days after his beatdown of Penn on January 31. A man of leisure he is certainly not (don’t believe the photoshoot in the UFC Magazine where he is sitting around the swimming pool)—leisure gives him the fidgets.
“I took a little time off, but after a week I got bored and I started training again,” he says. “I’m an obsessive crazy guy.”
He’s also very humble, having come from an underprivileged family in Quebec and at one time having been a puny kid that bullies targeted to pick on. He says that, “it’s important for me to always show a good image of the sport and carry myself well outside the Octagon,” and the proof is in the respect he gets everywhere he goes outside of Hilo.
Said Joe Stevenson when talking about training in New Mexico with GSP, “St-Pierre is the kind of guy that you’d want to marry your sister.” When people want to draft you into their families, you know you’re carrying yourself well outside the Octagon.
But GSP’s kind of suave is deceiving, too. He gets nervous like the next guy, and he has anxieties that may never show on his face, nor his record. You know how he combats it? He remembers that he is exactly where he wants to be, and that it’s in his control to remain there.
“I’m very stressed out,” he says. “I’m very stressed and it’s part of the game, but I love what I do for a living. I feel very privileged to do what I do for a living and I feel glad. I feel very happy every day I wake up because I do what I like to do and it’s not something that everybody can say in this world, that they do what they enjoy for a living. I know a lot of people, if they could, would like to change places with me, you know what I mean?”
Yup, and one guy comes to mind right off the bat—Thiago Alves. Even though the American Top Team fighter has won seven UFC fights in a row, his want of that title will have to transcend St-Pierre’s bent on keeping it. Come July 11, we’ll see. But one thing is certain and GSP will not soon forget—winters in Montreal are awfully cold without that belt.
Watch UFC 100 LIVE on Pay-Per-View (Outside U.S. & Canada) and worldwide on Yahoo! Sports and UFC.com.
Want to Leave a Comment?