James Brydon

Follow fight-by-fight results for MMA events with Twitter. James will do live updates during all UFC events as well as many other promotions, including Canadian ones.

Georges St-Pierre.

Georges St-Pierre still thinks he has lots to prove heading into his UFC 129 fight vs. Jake Shields.

TORONTO -- Georges St-Pierre was posed an interesting question near the end of Wednesday’s pre-UFC 129 press conference.

It came from a reporter from Quebec and it was naturally asked in French.

(UFC president Dana White said he dropped the ball because he didn’t have a translator on hand. No worries, allow me to give a rough translation.)

The reporter said that he had accomplished so much in his career and a lot of people say he has nothing left to prove. So he wondered why he is fighting now and what does this fight against Jake Shields, on Saturday night at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, represent for him?

What’s interesting about it is that type of question isn’t usually asked of a guy who’s only 29 years old and been fighting for less than 10 years -- especially when he was sitting one chair over from a guy in Randy Couture who is 47 years old and has been in the sport almost since the beginning and is already a Hall of Famer.

There’s some validity to it however. The Montreal fighter has won the welterweight belt twice (plus won an interim title) and has now successfully defended it five straight times. It’s actually more impressive than that: in his eight-fight win streak overall, he has won 30 consecutive rounds, as was mentioned Wednesday.

On top of that, he has become an icon of the sport and a poster boy for the UFC.

“I think Georges St-Pierre, and I’ll find very few people to argue, is a special individual,” White said in response to an earlier question. “He’s one of the greatest ever, in every way shape and form. As a fighter, as a human being, as an ambassador, you name it, he’s it.”

But I thought the answer to the French reporter’s question from St-Pierre, who is notorious for giving your standard “I want to be the best I can be”-type responses, was equally interesting as the question itself.

“It’s not true that I have nothing to prove,” St-Pierre said (translated). “There was one person I wanted to fight against who I watched for years and that’s the man who I will be facing Saturday.

“Shields was champion in five different organizations and fought in two different weight categories, which is something I’ve never done. This is the biggest challenge of my career. I’m very excited for this fight because I know he will really bring out of me everything I have to give in the Octagon. In my opinion, it should be the fight of the year.”

There are a couple of things I take from his response. Firstly, to make a statement that he still has something to prove and that he expects this to be fight of the year suggests – more so than his previous fights -- that he wants not just to win Saturday but to do so in impressive fashion. It’s time to get rid of the naysayers -- those few that still linger and complain how he is boring and hasn’t been able to finish fights.

The second thing this suggests -- and it’s not a new revelation -- is that he is seriously considering moving up a weight class. As he says, it’s not something he’s ever done and meanwhile others have -- such as Shields and other stars like B.J. Penn, Dan Henderson and Anderson Silva, arguably GSP’s chief competition for the sport’s pound-for-pound crown.

That could give us hope that the much-talked about Silva-GSP super-fight could happen, and would for the title at 185 pounds rather than at a catch weight.

If GSP does emerge victorious Saturday -- and he is currently listed as a 4-1 or 5-1 favourite, depending on where you look -- it would seem that would be the only natural move for him. Apart from a possible fight against Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz, he will have -- as White likes to say -- completely cleaned out the 170-pound division.

And the Diaz option is problematic. Nick wants to move to boxing, where he thinks he’ll make more money and his current contract allows that.

But I’m not sure that even matters, because if his teammate Shields is unable to get it done against St-Pierre, I wouldn’t give much chance to Diaz.

No, if GSP wins Saturday, I think he truly would have nothing left to prove at welterweight and it would be time for his next challenge.

After 129, it may be time to see him at 185.

NOTES:

-- GSP also said in response to a second question from the French reporter asking the most dangerous aspect of Shields: “With most of my past opponents, it was their athletic ability. Shields is very different ... he’s a very good athlete just not the best in the sport, but he’s very intelligent, very technical and very methodical. So it’s something I have to be wary of.”

-- There was naturally a large contingent of media on hand at the press conference held at the Direct Energy Centre located in south Toronto, including a number of non-sports outlets there to ask questions regarding the social and economic impact of the event. However, there were a lot less fans in attendance than one would have expected. Less than a couple hundred I would say. I think they may have gotten a better turnout had it been at the Rogers Centre, or at a location more in the heart of downtown.

-- Speaking of economic impact, UFC director of Canadian operations Tom Wright said that they are still doing an in-depth study but his estimate is that the event could end up generating $30-40 million of revenue to the city. If that’s true, the Ontario government can’t be regretting their decision to finally legalize MMA. New York, are you listening?

-- Others in attendance included first ever UFC champion Royce Gracie, Shields’ buddy and Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, and Steven J. Wong, director of the recent GSP documentary “The Striking Truth,” which by the way is now available on DVD.

-- Don’t forget to sign up and play in our UFC Connected Fantasy Tournament game, which begins with Saturday’s UFC 129. Great prizes available and it just makes following the fights even more fun. You can join my pool, As_Big_As_It_Gets (password: sportsnet7) and challenge me for pick’em supremacy. Also, you can follow me on Twitter at @james_brydon.