NEW YORK — As Georges St-Pierre weighed in for a fight for the first time in 48 months Friday morning, hands on hips as he hit his mark at 184.4 pounds, there was a brief moment of confusion. The returning legend forgot to pose.
See, the last time St-Pierre did this the official weigh-ins were held in the late afternoon, on a tall stage before thousands of screaming fans, with lights, video, women in bikinis, and all the accoutrements you’ve come to expect from the world’s foremost mixed martial arts promotion.
But now, as St-Pierre nears his first fight since November 2013 — this Saturday versus middleweight champion Michael Bisping at Madison Square Garden — things have changed.
Thanks to the more-than-a-little-bit alarming prevalence of extreme weight cutting in MMA, the UFC now holds its official weigh-ins mid-morning in a hotel ballroom. Fighters are then afforded several hours to rehydrate prior to the glitz, glamour and loud noises of the ceremonial weigh-ins later in the day.
So, it was in that ballroom that St-Pierre quickly stepped on the scale and quickly stepped off of it, before looking perplexed as photographers and media handlers yelled at him to step forward again and strike a pose for the cameras.
“Oh, yeah,” St-Pierre said, his Quebecois inflection unmistakable as ever. “I forgot to flex.”
That’s when the 36-year-old former welterweight champion curled his right arm next to his head and extended his left arm out towards the imaginary sky, striking a classic archer’s pose like he was Arnold Schwarzenegger in striped briefs on the beach.
This is the kind of jovial mood St-Pierre’s been in this week, smiling eagerly throughout his public appearances and playing to the cameras much more than he did prior to his sabbatical. On stage at the ceremonial weigh-ins Friday night, St-Pierre pointed and laughed at an enraged Bisping, who has spent the last several months capitalizing on every opportunity he’s had to try and get under his opponent’s skin, as he does.
It’s a little odd seeing this side of St-Pierre in the lead up to the fight. The St-Pierre who left the UFC four years ago was cold, calculated, relentlessly focused on his task. He was practically obsessive, and anyone who’s been in the locker room with him before a bout will tell you there were times St-Pierre took his fights almost too seriously, battling waves of nervousness and emotion before he walked to the octagon.
But the St-Pierre we’ve seen publicly in New York has been much more breezy, cheery, and generally at ease. He’s like a guy who’s spent a long time on top of the game, experienced the void of giving it all away, and now just wants to thoroughly enjoy his moment.
“I’m so happy to be here,” St-Pierre said at the weigh-ins Friday night. “It’s four years in the making. I’ve been wanting this for a long time. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. And I get it. Madison Square Garden, for the title, against Michael Bisping — it can’t get better than this.”
Bisping responded with some extremely pointed words for St-Pierre and his fans at the weigh-ins, a burst of contempt so vulgar it’s not even worth trying to publish them here with the expletives redacted. Let’s just say he got his point across.
Of course, Bisping is the master at this. Armed with one of the most entertaining wits in the fight game, Bisping makes his every appearance inescapably captivating. He’s an MMA legend in his own right, and there’s little reason to believe he actually feels any animosity towards St-Pierre, who he’ll someday share space with in the UFC Hall-of-Fame. But he does a masterful job of selling it like he does.
And, trust be told, he does have cause to be a little ticked off, considering the promotion for the fight has tilted so heavily towards St-Pierre, a reality that led Bisping to publicly ruminate whether the UFC would prefer for its champion to be defeated.
Bisping’s never garnered the respect he deserves as the winningest fighter in UFC history and the discourse around his late-career title reign has been more concerned with the dangerous challengers he hasn’t fought rather than the ones he has. Fair or not, you can understand why the guy’s a little aggrieved.
But the biggest factor in this fight isn’t the attitude or temperament of either fighter — it’s the unknown. After spending four years away from the sport, no one’s particularly certain what St-Pierre will look like upon his return. Which makes it next to impossible to handicap this bout going into it.
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You can make an argument that the time off will have rejuvenated St-Pierre mentally, healed him physically, and allowed him to holistically address the nuances of his game after he defended his welterweight belt nine times over five years, with eight of those fights lasting the full 25 minutes.
But you can also make an argument that mixed martial arts, still in its relative childhood as a professional sport, has progressed and evolved at a rapid pace over the last four years, and that a combination of ring rust and the unavoidable effects of aging could hamper St-Pierre in his return to a game that today is much different than when he left it.
Of course, Bisping is far from a new school fighter. And St-Pierre is, in many ways, the template for today’s young, up-and-coming MMA athlete: multi-disciplinary, technically sound, able to attack and defend in an abundance of positions. But St-Pierre’s exhausting proficiency was beginning to show signs of decay by the end of his tremendous run in 2013. How it’s aged in 2017, no one can say.
With that in mind, it appears that the 38-year-old Bisping, who on Saturday will be fighting for a staggering 28th time in the UFC, is as soft of a landing spot as St-Pierre could find in a high-profile fight like this.
He’s the champion for a reason, but Bisping has battled through significant eye and knee injuries over his last several fights and has been dropped by four of his last six opponents. His cardio and perseverance are unquestioned, but it’s undeniable that Bisping is on the back-nine of his decorated career — and he’s closer to the clubhouse than the turn.
But the kickboxer’s takedown defence and ability to scramble back to his feet when on the mat is often underrated, and he’ll have a clear size advantage on fight night against St-Pierre, who is moving up a weight class. That could help stuff some of the takedowns St-Pierre will surely shoot for, and, more importantly, nullify the Canadian’s dangerous transition game. It’s one thing to take a fighter down — it’s another to do something to him once you get him there.
So, who knows how this is going to play out? Beyond St-Pierre’s affable return, Bisping’s cantankerous rhetoric, and a gold strap on the line, the great selling point of this fight is the most organic selling point there is — the outcome could easily go either way.
