No Cruise Control for Georges St-Pierre at LinesMaker

The big 3–0. It’s an age many dread, the offi­cial sign­post on the way to mid­dle age. But Georges St-Pierre doesn’t seem too both­ered by the mile­stone he will reach on May 19th, nearly three weeks after he defends his UFC wel­ter­weight title against Jake Shields in front of over 55,000 fans at Toronto’s Rogers Cen­ter this Sat­ur­day night.

Instead, he says with a know­ing smile, “30 is only a number.”

Then he pauses.

“But it’s something.”

That’s for sure, and what that some­thing will turn out to be in his 30th year will be deter­mined greatly by what hap­pens this week­end against Shields. In many ways, it’s his tough­est chal­lenge yet, one that goes far beyond pre-fight hype.

In the Cal­i­for­nia jiu-jitsu ace, St-Pierre will be defend­ing his crown against per­haps the best sub­mis­sion artist he has tack­led, one who also has the wrestling abil­ity to back up his ground game. Shields is also no stranger to top-level com­pe­ti­tion and cham­pi­onship fights, hav­ing expe­ri­enced both over his years out­side of the UFC, though as St-Pierre points out, in the UFC “Every­thing is mul­ti­pli­cated by ten.”

So the cham­pion has pre­pared accord­ingly, almost doing as much hyp­ing, if not more, of Shields as the soft-spoken chal­lenger has done for him­self, call­ing him “the tough­est guy that I’ve fought.”

With a resume that includes BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch, Sean Sherk, Matt Serra, Josh Koscheck, and Thi­ago Alves, that’s say­ing a lot. But it also begs the ques­tion, is St-Pierre say­ing these com­pli­men­tary things about Shields because he believes them, or because he wants to con­vince himself?

It’s been no secret that St-Pierre has run through his oppo­si­tion ever since regain­ing his title from Serra in April of 2008. The big num­ber float­ing around GSP these days is 30, and it’s not for his impend­ing birth­day, but because that’s the num­ber of con­sec­u­tive rounds he’s won since los­ing a sin­gle stanza in his 2007 bout against Koscheck. It’s an amaz­ing streak, one that doesn’t show any signs of end­ing if you go by his last three vic­to­ries – shutouts of Alves, Dan Hardy, and Koscheck. It may start get­ting to the point where we’re keep­ing a tally of min­utes lost, since he can’t find a way to lose rounds or fights.

And the way he’s win­ning each bout is almost as if he’s toy­ing with his oppo­nents. Hardy is a striker. Solu­tion, take him down and keep him on the mat for 25 min­utes. Well, fight fans com­plained about that strat­egy. So what does St-Pierre do in the Koscheck rematch last Decem­ber? He turns into a Cana­dian Larry Holmes and wins another five rounder, this time behind a jack­ham­mer jab.

With such Mas­ter Class level per­for­mances, can he even be chal­lenged at this point? St-Pierre thinks he will be, or at least he’s say­ing he will.

“Nobody is per­fect,” he said, most cer­tainly refer­ring to the only two blem­ishes on his 21–2 record, first round defeats to Serra and Hughes. “It’s gonna be a tough fight (against Shields). I have a big, big chal­lenge on my shoul­ders April 30th.”

But what’s the secret to beat­ing com­pla­cency? Future box­ing Hall of Famer Bernard Hop­kins once told me that when things were going too well, he would need some­one to break a glass or slash his tires to shake things up and get his mind back to where it needed to be before a fight. St-Pierre, unlike Hop­kins and one of his fight­ing favorites – Manny Pac­quiao – doesn’t work well under such cir­cum­stances. Where they need chaos, he needs order, and as he approaches this Saturday’s title defense, he feels that he has the nec­es­sary order in his life.

“I used to not enjoy it (the fight game) as much,” he admits. “But as the fights have gone by, I made a lot of changes to my entourage and in my train­ing, and now my smile is back on my face and I’m very excited for this fight.”

He’s excited enough that he has heard what fans and mem­bers of the media have said about him but has let it go, not­ing that “I don’t really lis­ten to the crit­ics.” But when asked about Shields’ ground game and how he plans on deal­ing with it, a champion’s fire is evi­dently still burn­ing when he says, “The way I’m think­ing is that Jake is gonna have to be care­ful that I don’t put him down on his back to get sub­mit­ted and punched in the face. That’s how I see things. I’m gonna dic­tate the pace of the fight.”

It’s kind of sad that it can come to this, where a dom­i­nant cham­pion has to defend his dom­i­nance while promis­ing to do even more. But that’s the nature of the beast, espe­cially in the world of com­bat sports. If St-Pierre was a base­ball pitcher, his string of shutouts would be front page news. If he was a quar­ter­back lead­ing a foot­ball team to 28–0 wins every Sun­day, no one would be able to stop talk­ing about him. But in the fight game, excel­lence is some­times over­ruled by excite­ment. Casual box­ing fans will always love Arturo Gatti more than Floyd May­weather, even though purists know what the real score is, and while Ander­son Silva and Jon Jones are rightly get­ting praised for their recent spec­tac­u­lar vic­to­ries, it’s unfair to leave GSP out of the conversation.

Luck­ily, St-Pierre appears to be imper­vi­ous to such talk, and if he’s lis­ten­ing and tak­ing it to heart, he’s not let­ting it show. There­fore, if he’s learned any­thing in his nearly 30 years on this planet, it’s that win­ning has a way of con­quer­ing all. How does he know? Well, he’s been on the other side, and he doesn’t like it one bit. So don’t expect him to slow down yet.

“I have to keep in mind that I can lose every­thing in the blink of an eye,” he said. “I can’t be on cruise con­trol, I have to keep work­ing hard.”

 

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