The former welterweight champion reflected on the time when his training mishap was captured by UFC cameras.
With a legendary career behind him, Georges St-Pierre has got some incredible stories to look back on in retirement.
His run as welterweight champion solidified St-Pierre as one of the greatest of all time but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t tested both inside the Octagon and behind closed doors.
He has now become a valuable coach and training partner at Tristar, with St-Pierre recently cornering Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 315 in May.
In a recent interview, he looked back at one moment in his career where one of his main sparring partners accidentally dropped him while the UFC cameras were in attendance.
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Kenny Florian dropped Georges St-Pierre with a head kick that his coach and UFC cameras all saw
In an appearance on the Anik & Florian podcast, Georges St-Pierre told a story about his preparations for UFC 111 where one session in particular went wrong.
Despite this, the welterweight champion would go on to dominate Dan Hardy to keep hold of the title, but before he could make it to fight night, ‘Rush’ had to battle some adversity in the gym.
He spoke highly of working alongside Kenny Florian as a training partner but there was one occasion, which he openly joked about, where Florian accidentally dropped him.
“As I’m going to shoot a takedown, he threw a head kick and I get hit in the temple and he freaking dropped me. I have a flash knockdown but I dropped with the leg in my hand so I stood up right away but it’s like a concussion because you feel your legs just give up.”
St-Pierre said that with him being such a perfectionist, he got back to his feet and finished the round before preparing to continue the rest of the session.
Unfortunately for ‘Rush’, the knockdown was seen by his coach and the UFC cameras, who were seemingly there to capture some training footage to use in promotional material ahead of the event.
“Everybody saw what happened, even the prime time, the camera of the UFC is there.”
Georges St-Pierre didn’t know that his training partners had been told to go easy on him for the remainder of the session
Georges St-Pierre went on to say that while he was determined to complete the full five rounds of sparring after being dropped in the third, his coach took precautions to keep his fighter safe.
Before two new sparring partners could step into the cage with the welterweight champion, Firas Zahabi whispered to both of them that they needed to take it easy with ‘GSP’ because they didn’t know how damaged he was from the head kick.
St-Pierre, who didn’t find out about this until after the fight, recalled how at the time, he couldn’t believe how well he was doing against his training partners before later finding out that they were pulling their punches.
“The next two rounds, I’m killing it. I’m feeling great because my training partner doesn’t give me any sort of resistance. They don’t hit me in the head so I’m taking them down and everything and I’m like, ‘Man I feel great, I had the best round of my life’. But all that because freaking Kenny Florian kicked me in the head.”