Georges St-Pierre believes fighters take trash talk ‘too personal’

Georges St-Pierre believes fighters take trash talk too personally.

Recently, we have seen fighters trash talk opposing fighters’ families, which is why Jorge Masvidal sucker-punched Colby Covington in the streets. Dustin Poirier also was not happy with Conor McGregor talking about his wife, however, for St-Pierre, he says fighters take it too personal as fighters need to know trash-talking is part of the game and they need to know it’s good for business and it’s not personal.

“Things get out of hand,” St-Pierre said on The MMA Hour. “I think guys, they take it too personal. For me, it never mattered what my opponent was saying to me. For me, it’s not personal, it’s about business, and the more he was trash-talking me, the more, in a way, I was making money. So I really have to give a big thank you to all the ferocious opponents I had who were trash-talking me, because they built up the fight in a better, interesting way for the audience, so I made more money. It’s good for business.”

St-Pierre no doubt has a good point as the more fighters trash-talk, generally the bigger the fight is. That, in turn, allows fighters to make more money from pay-per-view points and become a bigger star which increases their pay.

Image Credit: UFC.com

Yet, part of the reason why Georges St-Pierre never took it personally or was never trash-talked that much is due to the fact he kept his personal life private. He wasn’t talking about his family and instead, fighting was solely about him so opposing fighters didn’t have that ammo against him.

“There’s a reason why I never put my family and my real private life public,” St-Pierre said. “It’s because I know if someone wants to get to me, it’s easy for me. It comes from one ear and it goes out the other one and I don’t take it personal. But if you tried to get to someone that I love or someone in my family, now it’s gonna be a different story. So that’s why I always tried to hide this part of my life. Because I am a public person, so this part, it’s public, it’s for the fans, but my private life, for me it’s even more precious to me. To compare with my career, my life is a million times better than what I’ve done in my career, but I keep it secret because it’s my private life. It’s my diamond. It’s my treasure.

“Most guys don’t think like that. A lot of them, sometimes they want to use their families to build up a better platform, to showcase their — that’s okay too,” St-Pierre concluded. “It’s just for me, I knew coming from a martial arts background, it’s not a game that we play, and if you want to get to someone to make him lose his chill, there’s a way to get to someone and that’s to attack someone that he loves. Sometimes that’s a better way than to attack the person himself, and I knew that, and I didn’t want to give the chance to my opponents to use that against me. The Art of War, my friend! The Art of War!”

The hope for many fans though is family remains out of trash talk going forward but St-Pierre believes fighters just need to realize it’s only business.

Do you agree with Georges St-Pierre that fighters take trash talk too personally?