Nov-25-2009

George Sotiropoulos: Shopping around for success

By Elliot Worsell

George Sotiropoulos fought George Roop on August 8 and then got married a week later. Given the threat of defeat seven days earlier, Sotiropoulos’ big day would either wind up as the greatest moment of his adult life or an inopportune moment for reflection. Thankfully for Mr. And Mrs Sotiropoulos, Roop was submitted via kimura and the church organ was free to play.

“I got married on August 16, which was a week after my win in Philadelphia,” begins Sotiropoulos. “I was lucky in that I didn’t get any bruises or bumps from my fight and could get married while looking in a decent state.”

Sotiropoulos’ future wife could have been forgiven for worrying about her beau getting cold feet ahead of the big day. After all, Sotiropoulos is a 32-year-old with a knack – nay, a love – of flitting from one passion to another. He is, lest we forget, a mixed martial artist.

At age 19, Sotiropoulos discovered the UFC on an old VHS tape. More specifically, he found Royce Gracie and the concept of jiu-jitsu. The Aussie of Greek descent had an instant brainwave and realised that his true calling would come within the eight-sided Octagon.

“Watching UFC 1, 2 and 3 opened my eyes to the world of mixed martial arts,” says Sotiropoulos. “I saw Royce Gracie and the brilliance of his jiu-jitsu. I basically decided there and then that this was what I was going to do. I was still a teenager at the time, but I knew I would end up being a mixed martial artist.

“I kept that goal to myself to begin with, as people may have thought I was crazy. Jiu-jitsu was a sport in its infancy back then, especially in Australia. One of the only clubs in the country was actually in my hometown. At the time, I thought this jiu-jitsu stuff must be everywhere, but I quickly realised there was only one club in the country.”

While Sotiropoulos excelled at jiu-jitsu and bit-by-bit attempted to emulate his hero, there were other fighting arts yanking at his curiosity. Inside the metaphorical church, Sotiropoulos was walking down the aisle with jiu-jitsu and spotting other potential girlfriends sat at the altar.

“I started learning jiu-jitsu at this one club and worked on my skills for a number of years,” he says. “Once I got good at that, I started becoming known as one of the main competitors in the country. I then started training in wrestling and competing and placing at that. I then moved into boxing and had a few amateur bouts. Even back then, I always had the intention of mixing the arts and becoming a mixed martial artist.”

Sotiropoulos’ penchant for splitting his time between passions didn’t sit well with friends, family or nosy neighbours. It wasn’t through disgust at what George was spending his time doing – more confusion at how he managed to juggle so many balls at once.

“People in the streets would ask me what I was up to and I’d say I was training,” adds Sotiropoulos. “They’d say, training to do what? I would always think, ‘damn, how do I answer this?’ I’d only been training mixed martial arts, but hadn’t actually competed. Most of my competitive experience was in jiu-jitsu, submission wrestling, freestyle wrestling and boxing. I was competing in all these sports on a regular basis, but it was hard to explain or define what the final goal was. Nobody would understand what a mixed martial artist was. I would just say that I was training.”

The ‘people in the streets’ were a tough enough crowd. What Sotiropoulos didn’t see coming were the turned up noses on the faces of loved ones. An underground taboo at the time, mixed martial arts wasn’t the designated exit door for a well-educated kid with half an eye on a career in business.

“Everybody was against me in the beginning,” remembers Sotiropoulos. “Family and friends tried talking me out of it. Very few people were positive about the direction I was heading in. It was mainly the older generation that had a problem with it. Parents, uncles and aunties didn’t seem to like the idea. It bothered me a bit, but I didn’t care – it wasn’t going to stop me.

“When I tried doing the 9-to-5 thing it just didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t sleep well at nights and I just wasn’t happy. When I would train and fight, nothing made me happier. That was all that mattered at that point in time. I could find peace with myself through fighting. Nature just took its course.”

Despite emerging as one of the standout jiu-jitsu practitioners in his country, Sotiropoulos’ skills went largely unappreciated to begin with. It was only when he started inviting family members to watch him train and compete that an understanding started to sprout. It took its time, though.

“I had a cousin that I’d go visit in Sydney and he’d always be my driver,” explains Sotiropoulos. “He’d drive me to my events and support me. He’d seen me compete in jiu-jitsu one year, saw me freestyle wrestle the next and then he heard about me boxing the following year.

“He couldn’t understand why I kept switching sports and he asked me one day why I did it. He thought I just got fed up of the sports and didn’t like sticking with them. I explained to him that I was good at all the sports and that my goal was to become a mixed martial artist. It wasn’t until he saw me on The Ultimate Fighter that the penny dropped with him. That’s when he told me that he finally realised what it was I’d been doing all those years.”

Sotiropoulos enrolled on season six of The Ultimate Fighter and reached the semi-final stage. The show proved to be his breakout performance. It provided the kind of attention and spotlight he’d always sought while honing his various skills in Australia. Though he didn’t score the ultimate success on the show, Sotiropoulos had arrived on the big stage. While others had just awoken to the talents of the slick Aussie, Sotiropoulos merely received confirmation of what he had known all along.

“I knew straight away that I could be good at this,” says Sotiropoulos. “I took to it straight away and was good from the start. People around me knew that, too.

“I started with a clean slate at the age of 19 and had no martial arts experience whatsoever. I had the passion, heart and desire to fight, but I lacked the experience and skill. I knew I had to invest the time into training to acquire those skills.

“Growing up I would watch a lot of martial arts movies - stuff with Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and even the Rocky films. I loved the idea of training and leading that kind of Spartan lifestyle. I went from watching and dreaming about those things to actually then pursuing them. I started to then live that life. I now live to train and train to live.”

Sotiropoulos’ story isn’t one of pure natural talent comes good. While he’s undoubtedly blessed with physical gifts, Sotiropoulos has worked harder than most to get where he’s at today. An educated man, with plenty of other avenues calling out his name, Sotiropoulos sacrificed plenty to make it as a fighter.

“At this point I had finished high school and had just started university,” recalls Sotiropoulos. “I was studying business, finance and international trade. I had been working for a major bank for about a year and I was very career-minded. My heart was always in athletics and fighting, though. I started to put so much time into this dream of becoming a fighter that it quickly became my career and profession.”

Sotiropoulos adds: “Moving into fighting wasn’t a bold statement, where I just got up and quit everything and everyone around me. It was a gradual transition from studying full-time to working full-time to then competing and training on a hobby level. From there it progressed to competing on a part-time basis and then it became bigger as I started to travel and get good at it.

“I saved all my money and put it towards my training and development as a fighter. Everything I have made financially since the age of 18 has gone towards travelling and training and improving myself as a fighter. I have never indulged on anything that I like, whether it’s a hobby or some kind of vice. My training was my hobby and my life and I looked at it as an investment. At one point in time, I started to train more and work less, and that’s when I realised I had become a fighter.”

He said it. Sotiropoulos is now most definitely a fighter. He’s 11-2 in a thriving mixed martial arts career and has won four UFC bouts on the spin. He appears to be getting better with each and every performance and subsequent submission. His recent tap-outs of Jason Dent and Roop were seamless in their execution and devastating in their impact. Sotiropoulos is dangerous with his fists and deadly with his ground control and submissions. Opponents are liable to be knocked out standing and choked out on the ground. Sotiropoulos’ multi-faceted arsenal is testament to his dedication and desire to shop around. He enjoys having cold feet.

“Someone said to me once, ‘nothing is too easy and nothing is too hard’,” explains Sotiropoulos. “When you first start something, you look at it as a huge task. You start with a clean slate and you know very little about it. You don’t know where to start. When you learn from an expert, they know what they need to teach you and how it needs to be taught.

“Going into this thing (mixed martial arts), it was mind-boggling. I felt I needed all these skills now. I needed to be able to wrestle, submit guys, box and do Muay-Thai immediately. It just magically had to happen. The thing is, the people who were teaching me these arts had spent a lifetime learning them. So you’re thinking about mastering all these individual sports and yet realising that it takes even the best many years to get where they are.”

Though he won’t say it himself, Sotiropoulos could now be classed as a master of his art. However, we’re no longer talking traditional arts anymore. While he’s undoubtedly gifted in the individual arts of jiu-jitsu, wrestling and boxing, Sotiropoulos’ master’s degree has arrived in the burgeoning outlet of mixed martial arts. He’s gradually become an expert in the only art he’s ever truly loved.

“The way I discovered the early UFC events was through friends,” adds Sotiropoulos. “We went out on a Friday or Saturday night one day and a friend of mine gave me a VHS tape of these UFC fights. He said I had to watch it as soon as possible and that it was nothing like I’d ever seen before. He said they were cage fights and I had no idea what he was talking about.

“So, anyway, we were about to go out and party and he sticks on this videotape. I think it was either UFC 1, 2 or 3 and he shows me footage of Royce fighting and submitting a guy with his jiu-jitsu. I was like, ‘oh my God, this is what I’ve got to do’.

“At this time I was just finishing school and I was keen to take up a style of fighting, whether kick-boxing or wrestling. I wasn’t sure which discipline to go for. Seeing Royce made my mind up immediately. That’s when I stumbled across the only jiu-jitsu club in Australia. There were no black belts in the country at the time I started, and the guy who taught me was actually a brown belt.”

Sotiropoulos is now a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a master of mixed martial arts. He’s also married and settled down. No more cold feet.