Georges St-Pierre describes what he ‘hates’ and finds ‘unbearable’ about fighting professionally
Georges St-Pierre’s return to the Octagon over the weekend at UFC 217 was a success even after being away from competition for nearly four years. “Rush” stepped up a weight class to compete at 185 pounds for the first time in his professional MMA career and became the fourth fighter in history to become a UFC champion in two different weight classes by putting Michael Bisping to sleep with a rear-naked choke in the third round.
Following the fight, St-Pierre said on social media that winning at UFC 217 was the best night of his career. Despite all the glory, in speaking on a special edition of The MMA Hour on Thursday, GSP opened up on fighting professionally and revealed that there are times where he truly hates his job.
“There’s no perfect job,” said the new UFC middleweight champ (transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting). “The only bad thing about my job is that sometimes I need to fight. I need to go and fight. Fighting is fun, but the week of the fight, the uncertainty of fighting, the fear of being humiliated — because we do a crazy job. There’s two guys that get into a cage, there’s only one guy that’s gonna be rewarded victory. The other guy that will lose will do all that for nothing. The odds are relatively 50-50. There’s always the fear of being humiliated, losing, the fear that I have done all this crazy sacrifice for nothing. This is crazy, this is almost unbearable.”
“Rush” stated that most people only focus on the glorious and positive parts of fighting professionally. The champ added that being able to “live like a samurai” and having your results be a symbol of your hard work in training are the pros of fighting. However, the pressure of performing in the spotlight is something that really gets to him.
“The week leading up to the fight, you’re very stressed,” said GSP. “It’s unbelievable. And I don’t like that part of my work — I hate it. Especially, it’s mostly the waiting part. I love fighting when I’m in the gym and I train with a guy. I love exchanging knowledge, I love training. But when I’m fighting, the pressure of it, it’s crazy. It’s unbearable. I hate it.”
Even though the newly crowned UFC middleweight champion says he hates the pressure of fighting, St-Pierre says the pros outweigh the cons.
“But if I pass that, if I go through this, it will allow me to have the lifestyle that I love to have,” said St-Pierre. “My freedom, my lifestyle to train like a samurai, to be able to train like a martial artist, to pursue the great things in my career. There’s no perfect job.”
on 11/10/2017.
