Georges St-Pierre Battles Back from Tough Times: “I Lost the Love of the Sport”

Appearances can sometimes be deceiving.

From the outside looking in, UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was the happiest guy in the world.

He was a long reigning titleholder, a multimillionaire, the most profitable athlete in the UFC, and unanimously recognized as the face of the organization.

Despite all that seemed right with St-Pierre’s world, something was definitely wrong, and it literally took away the passion he once had for the sport he dominated.

“I had a lot of personal issues and I lost the love of the sport. I was doing it because I had to, not because I really wanted to,” St-Pierre said in an interview with Fuel TV on Tuesday.

During that time, St-Pierre suffered a major injury to his knee that required reconstructive surgery, more than a year away from the sport, and hours upon hours of rehabilitation. Not only did St-Pierre have to find a way to nurse his body back to health, but he had to get his mind right.

The only way to accomplish both of those goals was to make some major changes.

“I woke up in the morning and I was happy with my life, but I didn’t have the drive to go further and further,” said St-Pierre.

“I told myself when I took that long time off, I said, you know what, I’m going to do everything. I cannot make everybody in life happy, but it’s time for me to be a little bit selfish and organize my training that I can take the best of it, maximize the potential of my training and make it the best I can be and that’s what I did.”

St-Pierre didn’t go into detail on what changes were made, but he’s a happier and healthier fighter ahead of his next bout, which comes against Carlos Condit at UFC 154 in November.

“I changed a lot of stuff in my life and my training and the result is going to be in the fight,” said St-Pierre

Like any major shifts a fighter can make, it always raises the questions if it was a good or bad decision, but UFC 154 will tell the true story about the  Georges St-Pierre that walked into the injury, and the one that came out on the other side.

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