Mind Over Matter
As for St. Pierre, he sought to sharpen his fighting mentality by putting stark focus on something only the special ones do - becoming psychologically bulletproof. As a kid, Georges trained in Kyokushin Karate to deal with school bullies. As a result he became enthralled by the idea of being the strongest kid in school, even holding the chin-up record at his high school, École Pierre-Bédard. This interest carried over into college, where Georges studied kinesiology. He was a black belt in Kyokushin by the age of 12, and modeled himself after Jean-Claude Van Damme. I think we can all agree that getting a black belt at the age of 12 is a little concerning, particularly in the age of McDojos. In St. Pierre’s case, though, we can rest our little heads at night knowing that the black belt he received wasn’t the result of a bribe. In his late teens he started training in wrestling, something he had never done before. I repeat, he had NEVER wrestled a day in his life. Georges worked with Victor Zilberman and Guivi Sissaouri extensively, the latter of which captured multiple world championships in freestyle wrestling, even winning a silver medal at the 1996 Olympics. By the time of St. Pierre’s debut in MMA in 2002, he was regularly outwrestling guys who had been wrestling for years. He even used his wrestling against Justin Bruckmann in his second professional fight to win the UCC Welterweight Championship. This was but a narrow glimpse of the man who would form a legacy that even the widest of lenses couldn’t capture.
Not even close.
By Georges’ third professional fight, he was already being cheered on like a superstar. His opponent, Travis Galbraith, was a perfectly respectable fighter on the Canadian scene, going 5-1 and earning a spot in the UCC. The fight results show a win by TKO via elbows, but those weren’t just any elbows. Georges had Travis in side control and was posting his forearm on Travis’s chin, slamming his head to the canvas. So when his head hit the mat, not only was he taking the force of the elbow on his chin, but he was taking the force of the mat on the back of his head. In order to get Travis to the ground, GSP employed an unconventional tactic - a high crotch double leg is common in MMA, but the way he did it is not. The takedown Georges utilized is called a snag double leg. This technique is a bit different from other doubles in the sense that instead of driving forward with your hips and creating an angle, you’re using your head to drive into your opponent’s chest to push them forward, while also pulling their legs towards you, essentially sweeping their feet out from underneath them. What makes this double leg effective for MMA is its lack of set up - it only requires close proximity, as your knee doesn’t need to drive into the ground like it does with traditional wrestling takedowns. This worked perfectly for GSP, who simply caught Galbraith’s kick and used it to grab both legs. Simplicity at its best. Two fights later against Pete Spratt, the kick catcher strikes again. This time in the form of a snatch single leg, followed by complete domination on the ground. Pete standing up only tightened the choke, and GSP got his
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it's not 2010 anymore.
