Georges St-Pierre: nine defences and two UFC titles | Ultimate Fighter Reunion

Why fans still care

GEORGES ST-PIERRE is in every argument about the greatest UFC fighter. He held the welterweight title through a record nine defences, came back after four years to win the middleweight title, and retired 26-2.

He also drew the biggest crowd in UFC history to that point, 55,724 people in Toronto in 2011.

Early life

He was born on 19 May 1981 and is a native of Saint-Isidore, Quebec. He started Kyokushin karate at seven and had a black belt by the time he was 12. UFC.com still lists his style as karate, but he built it into a wrestling-led all-round game, and he later earned a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Getting started

He turned professional on 25 January 2002 at UCC 7 in Canada, stopping Ivan Menjivar. On the Canadian circuit he beat Justin Bruckmann by armbar, Travis Galbraith and Thomas Denny, then stopped Pete Spratt at TKO 14 in November 2003.

Career chapters

1. 2002Turns professional in Canada
2. 2004UFC debut, then a first loss to Matt Hughes
3. 2006Stops Hughes to win the UFC welterweight title
4. 2007Loses the title to Matt Serra, then wins the interim title from Hughes
5. 2008Takes the title back from Serra in Montreal
6. 2011Fights in front of 55,724 people in Toronto
7. 2013Ninth defence, against Johny Hendricks, then steps away
8. 2017Wins the middleweight title from Michael Bisping
9. 2019Retires

Into the UFC 2004 to 2006

He made his UFC debut at UFC 46 on 31 January 2004 with a decision over Karo Parisyan. On 22 October 2004 at UFC 50 he fought Matt Hughes for the vacant welterweight title and was armbarred one second before the end of the first round. He submitted Dave Strasser with a kimura at TKO 19 in Canada, then won four straight in the UFC, over Jason Miller, Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk and, by split decision in March 2006, B.J. Penn. On 18 November 2006 at UFC 65 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento he met Hughes again. A head kick and punches finished it in the second round, and St-Pierre was champion.

Lost and won back 2007 to 2008

On 7 April 2007 at UFC 69 in Houston, Matt Serra caught him with a looping right and stopped him in the first round. “Tonight I got beat by a better fighter than myself,” he said. He later put the loss down to personal matters and inexperience in life. He beat Josh Koscheck in August, then on 29 December 2007 at UFC 79 he armbarred Hughes with six seconds left in the second round for the interim title. On 19 April 2008 at the Bell Centre, the UFC’s first show in Montreal, he stopped Serra with knees to the body to unify the title.

Champion 2008 to 2013

He defended the title nine times, against Jon Fitch, Penn, Thiago Alves, Dan Hardy, Koscheck, Jake Shields, Carlos Condit, Nick Diaz and Johny Hendricks. Against Penn at UFC 94 in January 2009 he wrestled early on Greg Jackson’s game plan, then worked from mount until Penn’s corner stopped it after the fourth. He landed 10 takedowns on Alves and 11 on Hardy. On 30 April 2011 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto he beat Shields in front of 55,724 people, with a US$12.075 million gate, both records for the UFC and North American MMA at the time.

His ninth defence, against Hendricks at UFC 167 in November 2013, was a split decision that many disagreed with: all 15 media scorecards tracked by MMADecisions.com had Hendricks winning. He stepped away from the title after that fight.

The middleweight title 2017

On 4 November 2017 at UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden he came back after four years to fight Michael Bisping, Who’s Who number 9 for the middleweight title. He landed a superman punch in the first round and took Bisping down. Bisping’s elbows from the bottom cut him, but in the third St-Pierre dropped Bisping with a left hook, took his back and choked him out at 4:23. He gave the belt up in December after a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, ending a 34-day reign, and Robert Whittaker became champion. He retired at a press conference at the Bell Centre on 21 February 2019, aged 37. A fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov, Who’s Who number 1 had been talked about, but it was never made.

Style, technique and the corner

How he fights

He mixed karate striking with elite wrestling. He landed 90 of 137 takedown attempts and stopped 84 per cent of takedowns against him. His head coach Firas Zahabi credited his jab with shutting down Nick Diaz’s combinations in 2013. His signature move was the superman punch, a jab that turns into a cross as he leaps forward and swaps his feet. He has said he sets it up by “faking a groin kick”, and he used it on Hughes at UFC 65. He also threw a compact karate spinning back kick, and he finished fights with chokes, armbars, a kimura and knees to the body.

Teams and gyms

His head trainer was Firas Zahabi, who called St-Pierre’s camps “borderline insane” in 2013. From 2007 he worked on Muay Thai with Phil Nurse in New York, who taught him a heel kick and worked on spinning backfists and flying knees. Greg Jackson drew up the game plan for the second Penn fight.

Stories people still tell

1. The record crowd.

   UFC 129 in Toronto drew 55,724 fans in 2011. The previous UFC attendance record was 23,152.

2. The Serra rematch.

   A year after the upset in Houston, he won the title back from Serra on the UFC’s first show in Montreal.

3. The foundation.

   In 2009 he started the GSP Foundation, which aims to help young people stand up to bullying and to get more physical activity into schools. He also funds annual student-athlete scholarships through the Fondation Aléo.

Legacy

He holds the UFC record for welterweight title defences, nine, and UFC.com lists him with UFC records for takedowns, total strikes and significant ground strikes. He is in the UFC Hall of Fame and is a Member of the Order of Canada. According to UFC.com, he was the first MMA athlete to receive the Order of Sport. Dana White calls him “the most famous athlete to ever come out of Canada”.