UFC welterweight champion, Georges St. Pierre recently posted a Facebook picture in which he stands with 2012 Olympic judo bronze medalist Antoine Valois-Fortier at Gracie Barra Montreal.
“We had a nice surprise visit last Friday with London Olympics judo bronze medalist Antoine Valois-Fortier stopping by Gracie Barra Montreal! It was an honor to train with him and talk about his Olympic experience – Tu reviens quand tu veux Antoine!!! “
For the non-French speakers among us, GSP says “You can come back whenever you want, Antoine” at the end – and uses the three exclamation marks because AVF is awesome.How awesome? AVF is currently 11th in the world rankings, beat the 2008 gold medalist in the first round (by referee’s decision) and ran rampant on the American, Travis Stevens in the bronze medal match.
AVF’s JudoInside profile shows a fairly good competition record, although he missed several big events full of the top sharks in his weight class in the past year and more. In the Olympics, he came in ranked 21st, and lost to Ivan Nifontov of Russia in the quarterfinals (world rank 6 and Olympic rank 7).
GSP training with AVF does not mean AVF is considering a move to MMA or that GSP is all of a sudden going to be busting out Rick Hawn style seoi nage throws. However, there is some value to training with an elite judoka for MMA fighters and the judoka can pick up newaza tips or work on their balance and throws even more. It is a good move for GSP and hopefully brings some attention to AVF for his stellar 2012 Olympics run.
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