Georges St. Pierre is at the top of the UFC heap, the longest reigning champion in the promotion as he heads into Saturday’s bout with Johny Hendricks at UFC 167. But he wasn’t always arguably the sport’s pound-for-pound king. In fact, when he first started in the UFC, St. Pierre spent his pre-fight being unintentionally terrified by Mark Coleman.
MMA Junkie has the quotes from the pre-fight press conference where GSP explained the situation:
“Mark Coleman goes, ‘Who are you?’ And I’m like, ‘Hi, I’m Georges St-Pierre.’ He goes, ‘Who are you going up against? (I said), ‘Karo Parisyan?’ He goes, ‘You a wrestler?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wrestle.’
“He goes, ‘Yeah! I’m rooting for you!’ And then pandemonium broke out in the locker room. I was so agitated. I was scared. When the time came for me to warm up, and these guys were screaming at me. I didn’t understand what they said, but there were a lot of f-words. I couldn’t speak English, so I tried to let it motivate me. But they were scaring me.
“I was the one fighting, and they were going back and forth, hitting the wall. I had to go to the bathroom to do some jumping jacks, and Burt Watson exploded in the room like, ‘Ready to roll!’ Then I stepped up, and I fought.”
St. Pierre would go on to beat Parisyan by unanimous decision for his first UFC win. The French Canadian star has gone 19-2 in the promotion since.