Injured UFC champ Georges St-Pierre: 'I'll be back on top'
by Steven Marrocco on Dec 07, 2011
Several weeks had elapsed before Georges St-Pierre (22-2 MMA, 16-2 UFC) discovered that instability in his right knee was actually a torn ACL and meniscus.
The UFC welterweight champ hyperextended the knee during a wrestling practice while preparing for his fight with Nick Diaz at UFC 143.
However, he exhibited few of the symptoms of an ACL tear and didn't get confirmation of the injury until Monday, when his personal doctor relayed the results of an MRI.
The long-reigning titleholder today assumed responsibility for perhaps pushing his recovery from a previous knee injury too swiftly, and he warned he'll have the last word for those who criticize him.
"Right now, a lot of people are saying bad things about me because it's easy to hit a guy when he's down," St-Pierre said. "Life goes up and down. Right now, I'm down. A month ago, I was world champion, and I was on top of the world. Now I'm in a downfall. But you recognize a champion from how he comes back from a loss, not how he is when everything goes well.
"And everybody that says bad things about me right now, mark my word, right now I'm in a downfall in my life, but in a few months, I'm going to be back stronger than ever, and I will be champion again. This, I promise my fans."
St-Pierre, who won't actually surrender his title during the layoff, has yet to decide who will perform a reconstructive surgery on his right ACL that is expected to keep him out of action for six to nine months.
"I know Georges has the discipline and the determination to be back to the same level of competition that he was before that injury, said Sebastien Simard, St-Pierre's personal doctor.
Diaz (26-7 MMA, 7-4 UFC), meanwhile, is set to fight Carlos Condit (27-5 MMA, 4-1 UFC) for the UFC interim welterweight title at the Feb. 4 event, which takes place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Reached today for comment, Gracie told MMAjunkie.com that Condit is a more formidable opponent as a standup fighter and said fans were unlikely to give Diaz credit for being champion until he beats St-Pierre.
"I don't watch the Internet, but one of the reporters said Cesar Gracie said something bad about me," St-Pierre said. "That doesn't surprise me. We have a saying in France: Life goes up and down. People will laugh because I'm in a downfall and I'm injured, but believe me, I'll be back on top, and mark my word, I will be champion [before the end of 2012]."
St-Pierre suffered a sprained MCL and pulled his right hamstring six weeks ago that forced him to withdraw from a fight with Condit at UFC 137. Condit then elected to wait for St-Pierre to heal while Diaz, who was stripped of a title shot at the event when he no-showed two press conferences, went on to headline the event and win a dominant decision over B.J. Penn.
Trainer Firas Zahabi said today that his biggest challenge in working with the champ is to get him to recognize and heal the bumps and bruises common to every fighter, a statement with which St-Pierre agreed.
"I believe there is only one person to blame after what happened, and it's myself," he said. "I'm the kind of guy that sometimes I [experience] pain, and I can go through it. That's what I do all the time. But I learned a big lesson in my life, and it's just going to make me stronger, smarter and more clever.
"I learned the hard way, but this experience changed my life, and it will make me stronger."
St-Pierre said the idea of an interim title fight is "the right thing to do right now," though he implied that the winner of the bout may not be the opponent standing across from him when he's ready to fight.
"After that, there's probably going to be another fight, and after that, and then I might fight the winner of that other fight," he said. "We'll see how things will go down. But I just hope the best guy wins."
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Originally Posted by martin
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