I know that the people following the sport of MMA closely know this story already, but for those that are critical of the athletic element in MMA, this is a good one. Georges St. Pierre, a Canadian welterweight, was coming of a devastating loss in which he dropped his UFC title to an 11-1 underdog. When he went back to training he spent extensive time with the national wrestling team and Olympic gold medalist Daniel Igali. Wrestling is one of the three key disciplines of mixed martial arts, along with striking and submission grappling. They helped him train for his next unscheduled fight and he helped them train for the Olympic trials in late 2007. Then a funny thing happened. St. Pierre, 26, who has no high school or college wrestling pedigree, was holding his own against Canada's best wrestlers. St. Pierre learned wrestling as a martial art starting in 2001, so his development has been extremely rapid. The Canadian team began to encourage St. Pierre to compete in the Olympic trials with them, and he planned on doing so. At that time a December title fight was scheduled between the man who took St. Pierre's UFC welterweight belt, Matt Serra, and the number one contender, Matt Hughes. In training Matt Serra suffered a back injury and had to pull out of the fight. The UFC began looking for a replacement to fight Hughes and St. Pierre was offered the fight. St. Pierre took the fight, giving up on the Olympic trials, claiming that the UFC title was more important to him than the Olympics. St. Pierre won the fight and is scheduled to have his rematch with Serra in Montreal, Quebec in April.
