UFC Nation founders Christopher Farrell, Nigel Esmond D'Souza and Ronny Avendano

BY PERRY LEFKO
sportsnet.ca

Like many sports teams and their nation of fans, it is not uncommon for an athlete to have his legion of followers.

Meet GSP Nation , a group of people who are fans of Georges St-Pierre, the reigning UFC welterweight champion. GSP Nation was formed by three 22-year-old Torontonians -- Christopher Farrell, Nigel Esmond D'Souza and Ronny Avendano -- who want to celebrate the fighter's accomplishments and herald him as a national hero.

The three were among a throng of fans who turned out on Wednesday to see St-Pierre and several other fighters who are scheduled to be on the UFC 129 card Saturday night at the Rogers Centre. The GSP fans wear tae kwon do headbands that D'Souza created that are similar to what the Quebec fighter wears for his fights.

D'Souza started a website, www.GSPnation.com, through which headbands can be obtained.

"If you want to represent our nation and the movement we're trying to do," D'Souza said. "Worldwide you'll see a lot of fans from our Twitter account. There are people from all over. A lot of people from the States are big fans. He's a big star, in and of himself. The Canadian factor is something that strikes home with us, but GSP Nation is very large. We get traffic from all over the world."

"It means a lot," Farrell said of the UFC 129 event, which will be the biggest in the company's history, scheduled to attract a crowd of at least 55,000 and countless millions more watching on pay-per-view television. "It's just an experience that you have never felt before. You have never seen something like this before in Toronto. The fact he could come to Toronto, back to his home of Canada and have his fans behind him full of force backing him, GSP Nation is completely awesome.

"We're fans. We have to back our hometown hero. No, he's not from Toronto. Yes, he's from Quebec. But he's still Canadian, and as Canadians we're still supposed to support our teams and, hopefully, this is just the beginning of something we can translate to more than just hockey - into our baseball, our basketball, into all of our sports, so our Canadian teams do well."

UFC president Dana White showed GSP with superlatives for anyone who didn't know much about the fighter and his accomplishments.

"This guy has been an incredible, dominant fighter in mixed martial arts and in the UFC," White said. "I've said it many times: he's the most famous athlete to ever come out of Canada. You couldn't ask for a better representative for your country, for the UFC title and for the sport of Mixed martial arts."

D'Souza says GSP Nation includes everyone who is a fan of the fighter, wants to represent Canada, believes in Toronto, and believes in the sport of MMA, of the caliber and hard work and what it takes to be on top.

"That's what GSP is at right now," D'Souza said. "It's not just us. It's a movement we are definitely trying to be catalysts to. I didn't start GSP Nation , the term, people have been saying that for awhile. We're trying to promote fan engagement as well.

"We decided to fully put it into one," Avendano added. "There's many voices out there. There's so many GSP fans, but they're unheard of."

Avendano is the only one of the three who has actually met St-Pierre in person. It happened several years ago at a Toronto IndyCar event before the fighter's popularity has grown worldwide into what it is today.

"He was such a humble person, so nice to talk to," Avendano said. "He took his time with you, he didn't rush you. It was there that I became an even bigger GSP fan. It's a great fight card (on Saturday), but GSP headlining it is great. You always want to support your own. That's why (Canadians) love the Olympics (and the goal scored by Sidney Crosby). You just want to support your own.

"GSP is our own. He's from Canada. We've nurtured him since the beginning and now he's at the top and we need to realize this sport is amazing. He's at the top. He's a great athlete and we need to support him as a nation. We're trying to get the word out there, tell everyone we have a site, you can visit it. We can all join together and become this one group of fans and show our love for GSP.

"We decided to get (the website) fully out there so everybody can meet at one location. And just start the movement. There's fans out there. There's definitely a following. As you can tell from any UFC event, there's Canadian everywhere."

They see St-Pierre as role model that has an infrastructure around him to help him achieve his goals of success.

"You don't get to the top of where you are without a support system around you," D'Souza said. "He's obviously surrounded by great people. He's training hard."

"He has people everywhere surrounding him, who want him to do well, do his best and, hopefully, the right outcome is on Saturday night (against challenger Jake Shields).

"We hope to get his backing one day," Avendano added. "We try to stick out a little bit and try to show him we're there and hopefully one day he'll know."