A home turf advantage in sports is something most athletes covet. Yet Georges St-Pierre has grown weary of fighting in front of his home fans. His last four fights have been main events in his home country—three shows at the Bell Centre in Montreal and the historic UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, the biggest event in UFC history to date with more than 55,000 people in attendance—all of which he won handily.
But when GSP faces Johny Hendricks in the main event at UFC 167 in Las Vegas, he finally gets a breather from the pressures of competing in Canada and it will be extremely beneficial for the Saint-Isidore, Que., welterweight when he enters the Octagon.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Watch UFC 167 preliminary fights on Sportsnet 360 Saturday starting at 8 p.m. EST and catch three bonus prelims on sportsnet.ca at 6:45 p.m. EST
According to UFC president, Dana White, GSP is the biggest pay-per-view draw in mixed martial arts. He’s fought in a main or co-main event 14 consecutive times dating back to 2006. So he’s going to do a lot of press in the lead-up to any event he’s a part of. That’s a given. But the demands on his time and the extent of public interest are simply that much more intense whenever he fights on home soil.
Ahead of GSP’s highly anticipated grudge match against Nick Diaz in Montreal last March, I had learned that he was going to drop the puck at a Montreal Canadiens game just three nights before he would be the centre of attention himself at the Bell Centre. So I asked him whether or not he was looking forward to it. Expecting a canned response—“It’s an honour, very happy to do it, should be fun, yada yada yada”—I was surprised to hear his candid answer.
“To tell you the truth I would have liked to (stay home),” an enervated-sounding St-Pierre explained. “I don’t like to do this stuff but I have to do it. I’m here to fight. It’s part of the game.”
St-Pierre is a gentleman and a true professional, so he obliges these kinds of requests with little or no hesitation. But make no mistake, it is a tiresome endeavour. And when he fights in Montreal the pressure is particularly inflated because he does additional interviews in French for the local media, something his opponents don’t have to do. Sidney Crosby is the face of the NHL in Canada, but he’s not expected to carry the load the same way GSP does for the UFC north of the border.
St-Pierre (24-2) has a massive fan base outside Canada but he hasn’t fought in the United States since dominating Dan Hardy at UFC 111 in New Jersey in March 2010. He’s had plenty of success fighting in Las Vegas—of his 20 UFC fights, 10 have taken place in Vegas, all of which he won, five of which he finished. He hasn’t fought there since 2009, but his history in Sin City could bode well on fight night, especially considering his opponent doesn’t have much experience fighting there.
Hendricks (15-1), who fights out of Texas, has competed just three times in Las Vegas in his MMA career. In fact, his lone loss occurred there back at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale in December 2010. The man to defeat him? Rick Story, whom GSP recruited for his latest training camp in order to prepare for UFC 167.
Many are saying this will be GSP’s most difficult title defence and that Hendricks is the most dangerous opponent he’s ever faced, so the fact the champ won’t have to deal with the added hometown pressure during fight week is a bonus.
GSP has said repeatedly “you have to be crazy in the head” to be a champion, and leading up to UFC 167 he’s exuded all the right types of crazy—he even purchased a regulation-sized Octagon to train in. By all accounts he’s had an excellent fight camp and by his own admission he’s obsessed with defeating Hendricks.
There’s a different vibe about GSP heading into this fight; a new air of confidence he’s displaying.
The daily grind of MMA training camps can become monotonous, and when you fight in the same venues and are constantly bombarded with mentally draining, time-consuming media requests it adds a new layer to the tedium. Groundhog Day with a lot of stitches.
At UFC 167 in Las Vegas, Georges St-Pierre gets the fresh start he so desperately needs and the end result could be the best GSP we’ve seen.