Given both his wrestling pedigree and consensus status as the Greatest Mixed Martial Arts athlete of all time, Georges St-Pierre has an interesting idea as to how we could get MMA, or rather a modified version, into the Olympics.
There are technically five different combat sports at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Judo, Boxing, and Taekwondo – but will we ever see MMA as we know it, added to the schedule of future Games?
GSP has an idea on how MMA could be added to the Olympic Games
Over the past two weeks, veteran MMA journalist Ariel Helwani has been in Paris covering the Olympic Games for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and yesterday, he had a chance to catch up with the legendary Georges St-Pierre.
GSP might be in attendance to support the Canadian wrestling team, but it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to MMA and specifically, the possibility of Mixed Martial Arts eventually becoming included as part of the Olympic Games.
“It used to be at the Olympics in Ancient Greece, but it was called Pankration,” explained ‘Rush’, adding how “The rules were much different back then but who knows [moving forward].
“I don’t think that I’ll live long enough to see it in the Olympics; and the reason is because it’s called Mixed Martial Arts, it’s a combination of different combat sports.”
GSP did have an interesting idea as to how to get MMA, or rather a sub-division of the sport, into the Games: “Perhaps if they wanted to go back to their roots, they could have some modifier rules.
“That would be interesting… I think Jiu-Jitsu could be there [too], maybe perhaps they can call it ‘Submission Wrestling’ because there might be athletes from Judo, Sambo, wrestling and chute-fighting competing in so that would be interesting.”
The 2024 games in Paris are the first that GSP has attended in person, telling Helwani: “I’ve never been, I always watched it on TV and being here, it feels unreal.”
Yet there were once rumors, albeit blown out of proportion, that the legendary welterweight could in fact ditch Mixed Martial Arts in the hope of getting on the Canadian wrestling team for the Games.
Back in 2010, GSP told reporters at UFC 105 how the idea was “something in the back of my mind” but noted that the switch looked unlikely as he was under contract with the UFC.
“There is a big difference between saying I want to go to the Olympic Games and actually going to the Olympic Games. It’s very hard. To do the try-outs and everything it’s very hard. You have to pass through a bunch of obstacles before you get there.”
Thankfully, for us MMA fans at least, GSP opted to stick it out with the promotion and less than 18 months later, broke the record for most consecutive UFC welterweight title defenses.
Daniel Cormier had an interesting suggestion as to how Olympic MMA could work
Whilst the idea of having a ‘Submission Wrestling’ event is by far a more realistic path to getting MMA in the Olympic Games, rather than under a more traditional ruleset, GSP isn’t the only one with an interesting outline.
Back in 2020, Daniel Cormier and Ariel Helwani were discussing how MMA would function under the IOC banner, with the former double champion suggesting a staggered approach to competition.
“The Olympics is 18 days, that’s the extent of the competition… What you do is you have the opening ceremony, and you do eight-person brackets where you’ve got three fights… You take away the elbows, all those things that can really damage someone and you can wear headgear.”
Cormier argued that in order to keep fighters healthy enough to make weight on three separate occasions so quickly, you allow athletes to gain a certain amount of weight as the tournament progresses.
“You fight at the beginning of the games, and you make weight, the person that wins goes to the semis five or six days later and they make weight again, plus two kilos.
“So, you fight, people that get to the finals, give them one more kilo so that they’re like six pounds overweight by the end of the games… That’s how you do it, that’s how you spread it out.”