Georges St-Pierre has revealed that he once used a brick to bounce back from the depths of defeat.
St-Pierre is widely considered by MMA fans as being the sport’s greatest fighter of all time, but not many if them would’ve expected the UFC Hall of Famer to prepare like he once did.
Having debuted with Dana White‘s promotion in January 2004, it took the Canadian just nine months to fight for a UFC title.
Although he suffered a first-round submission defeat to Matt Hughes, GSP quickly quickly turned his fortunes by going on a five-fight win streak to win UFC gold for the first time in November 2006.
St-Pierre knocked out Hughes, who was viewed as another great at the time, in their rematch to claim his inaugural welterweight strap.
However, just five months later he was remarkably stopped by Matt Serra at UFC 69 in one of the biggest upsets in the promotion’s history.
Speaking with his former UFC rival Serra, the 43-year-old detailed insights into his championship mindset at the time, and how we was able to avenge his two defeats in MMA’s biggest league.
“You were haunting my mind constantly,” St-Pierre told Serra on the latter’s podcast.
“Because I was angry at myself. I wanted to get back and erase that mistake so the sports psychologist said to me: ‘Georges, you carry a lot of bricks’.
“So he wrote your name on a brick and made me carry a brick in my training bag with your name on it – Serra.”
‘Rush’ then explained how he had to fight his way up the rankings again to secure another title shot shot after losing to the American.
He did so by claiming a unanimous decision victory over Josh Koscheck in 2007, adding that utilising the brick helped to overcome his ‘obsessive’ nature when it came to his rematch with Serra.
“I carried that in my bag for weeks and weeks and weeks and it was getting heavy,” St-Pierre continued.
“Because when you go in Tristar (MMA gym), you have to go up the stairs and already my bag is heavy, I thought this is getting ridiculous.
“I was calling my sports psychologist like: ‘Can I get rid of the brick, it’s ridiculous?’, he was like: ‘Nope, nope’, and I kept carrying it…and I was like: ‘I’m very tired now, can I get rid of the brick?’, he was like: ‘Yes’.
“So I went near the river, grabbed the brick, and threw it in the river.
“It sounds weird but it’s an action that manifests, it had a psychological manifestation on me because I felt like, relief.”
‘Rush’ clearly had the right people around him, as it was only four months after defeating Koscheck that St-Pierre beat Hughes for the second time to reclaim the welterweight title.
He then avenged his only other UFC defeat by knocking out Serra in their 2008 rematch at UFC 83.
“If I wouldn’t have done that I would maybe have lost that fight, so that’s how I got over that and regained my confidence,” St-Pierre concluded.
The rest is history as the Canadian went on to win 11 more title fights under the UFC banner, leaving him just second behind the iconic Jon Jones for the most in the promotion’s history.
St-Pierre is a former two-division champion, having also moved up to win a title in the middleweight ranks after being crowned the king of the welterweights.
He finished his UFC career having won 13 fights in a row, beating some of the sport’s biggest stars like BJ Penn, Nick Diaz and Michael Bisping en route to MMA’s summit.
‘Rush’ was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame’s ‘Modern Wing’ as a member of the class of 2020.
UFC President White described him as ‘the most famous athlete to ever come out of Canada’, and a man who single-handedly built the sport of MMA globally.