GSP: I should have taken break one or two fights earlier
Georges St-Pierre on his extended absence: “I should have actually stopped maybe one fight before, or two fights before, but I couldn’t.”
Bloody Elbow‘s Mark Bergmann recently spoke with former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre in Munich, Germany last week, and discussed his extended absence from the sport.
“There is different reasons of why I took a break,” said GSP. “What I can say is, I’m not sure, I don’t know right now if I wanna come back or not. I’m not sure when, if I do. So it’s still the same answer as before.”
“Like every human being, I wish one day I’ll meet someone and spend the rest of my life with, with a great family and stuff. That’s a dream of pretty much everybody.”
That is not however why he stepped away from the sport.
“I’ve been doing this sport at the elite level for a very long time,” he said. “I’ve been champion for like nine years, eight years. And it’s a very stressful life. You have a lot of criticism, a lot of pressure and critics, and everything put together, it hit you a lot. You don’t wanna hear the critics sometimes, but it’s still there. I’m a sensitive guy, and it hit you, hit you, and you’re never good enough and stuff. So for my mental health, I needed to step out and get a little bit of a social life.”
“Mixed Martial Arts is something that I’ve done all my life, you know, I would never stop training, no matter what, if I come back or not.”
“I became world champion by training for fun. And then the fun became business, and business became stressful, and then you lost fun. I didn’t have fun at the end, I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to. I should have actually stopped maybe one fight before, or two fights before, but I couldn’t. It was always constantly another guy challenging me. Carrying all this weight on my shoulders, I felt like I needed to do it, instead of wanting to do it.”