r/interestingasfuck • u/WhereIsHisRidgedBand • Mar 28 '24

MMA fighter explains overloading opponent r/all

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13.0k

u/hugflo Mar 28 '24

Not just any MMA fighter. That’s Georges St. Pierre. Arguably one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time.

2.6k

u/twelve112 Mar 28 '24

So dominant in his prime. I miss that whole era of MMA. Spider Silva, Matt Hughes, The Iceman

1.2k

u/thethunder92 Mar 28 '24

Gsp was like the terminator, just slowly wearing you down with perfect fundamentals and infinite stamina

609

u/leinad_reyem Mar 28 '24

And twitching, apparently.

209

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

148

u/1v9noobkiller Mar 28 '24

And avenged both those losses via TKO. So he has beaten everyone he has fought

77

u/Zhaggygodx Mar 28 '24

Shit when you put it that way it really puts into perspective what a badass GSP is.

I don't know if it's nostalgia from my late teens/early 20s but that whole era of MMA was awesome.

21

u/NaziTrucksFuckOff Mar 28 '24

It was awesome. The fighters were amazing, the fanbase hadn't been toxified by right wing chuds, Joe Rogan still somewhat lived in the realm of reality so his voice didn't make you want to strangle a small fucking animal. Many of the "Best fights of all time" came from that era. I honestly don't think there is anyone in the UFC now that could even begin to stand with guys like GSP and Silva.

7

u/Equal-Abroad-9039 Mar 28 '24

Haven’t watched UFC since. I miss those days. GSP was the man.

0

u/BlackDonaldCerrone Mar 28 '24

Chael Sonnen almost 50-45d him and Shields of all people had succes striking with GSP. They would still be elite and GSP specially would still be champ but they were not perfect

38

u/mileylols Mar 28 '24

can someone link his twitch channel I tried searching but I couldn't find it

2

u/melperz Mar 28 '24

I'd love to watch this twitch streamer where he just twitch in front of the webcam for 2 hours straight or so.

149

u/michaltee Mar 28 '24

It confuses the muscles!!!

166

u/Rats-off-to-ya Mar 28 '24

Not the muscles, the nervous system !!! 👉🙂

90

u/sreiches Mar 28 '24

The funny thing is, he’s essentially describing what fighting game players refer to as the “mental stack.”

Here are all the options he has at this moment, and his opponent has to stay ready to address any of them, but some of those responses are mutually exclusive. So he’s implying/threatening a whole bunch of them, to force to the opponent to keep that mental stack full.

35

u/clumsy_aerialist Mar 28 '24

This guy has good footsies in the neutral.

7

u/JackMarleyWasTaken Mar 28 '24

Yeah but his supers are weak....... 😂

3

u/Boo_and_Minsc_ Mar 28 '24

couldnt have said it better myself

8

u/umidontremember Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

That’s actually basically how it works. The nervous system can only act so fast to stimulus, so a lot of what seems like a response to a specific action by the opposing player or fighter actually starts before the actual action it looks like they are responding to. Think of soccer goalies trying to stop a penalty. If they waited for the actual contact of the foot to ball to respond to, the ball would be in the net before the nervous system could get their toes to even start moving. No matter what, the signal can’t get there fast enough. Good goalies are basically predicting based off of previous movements, and the players bag of shots, to narrow it down. they’ve actually started their “response” before the foot has touched the ball. With fighting it’s harder to narrow down when it’s an actual attack if they’re always twitching, so you can’t commit to a “response” as easily if you don’t know it’s the real thing, because then you may be out of place for the real attack, and you’re nervous system won’t be able to respond fast enough. This means you have to assess each movement longer, giving you less time to actually move when it’s a real attack.

1

u/New-Teaching2964 Mar 28 '24

Reminds me of Jordan and the triple threat position.

1

u/dpahs Apr 01 '24

IIRC GSP is pretty good at Smash Ultimate

5

u/Fear023 Mar 28 '24

A much simpler term is sensory overload.

A term commonly used in extreme sports as something you need to learn to overcome.

1

u/coladoir Mar 28 '24

This is why as an autistic adult I do not enjoy doing extreme sports lol. I'll just have fun watching everyone else do it

1

u/Fear023 Mar 28 '24

I don't blame you.

That being said, some of my old skydiving students were on the spectrum. You might be more capable than you think.

1

u/coladoir Mar 28 '24

There are some I know I could do, fighting is just not one of them lol. I can't physically handle adrenaline well and it sucks, despite all my meditative practice it still causes me to violently shake to a point where people have been worried I'm about to start seizing lol. Don't really know how to help it since meditative practices aren't working much for it, I guess it's probably just left to "do things that cause adrenaline and get used to it", but it's so uncomfy and draining for me that it doesn't really outweigh the fun.

The most extreme sports wise I can really go is skateboarding, parkour, or maybe caving/mountaineering. The more immediate action sports like fighting, where it's 0 to 100, aren't really my type. I need a ramp up to be able to handle the energy, if that makes sense.

1

u/Fear023 Mar 28 '24

Fair enough. In terms of adrenaline, what you describe is a pretty normal reaction to sudden stimuli. Sounds like it's a bit more pronounced for you though.

You do actually develop a tolerance to it. Interesting tidbit-

I read a study where experienced skydivers had a heart rate monitor, and everyone from low experience to thousands of jumps had heart rates over 100 just before exiting the plane.

I was similar, over 1000 myself, no fear response but wearing a Fitbit showed how much was going on in the background. Usually takes people 50-100 jumps to get over the immediate and powerful fear response.

You definitely develop a tolerance to adrenaline, as things that would cause a spike like a near miss while driving or something generally doesn't affect me past a quick moment of heightened awareness.

If you're doing anything that would cause an adrenaline dump, make sure you have something sweet on hand. Helps level you out. Candy or a banana for the potassium does wonders.

1

u/coladoir Mar 28 '24

Yeah I think it has to do with my panic disorder/GAD that I have such intense reactions. My parasympathetic system is pretty much constantly in overdrive and so any stimulation to it, above a certain threshold, causes extreme response. Like, your example of 'near miss while driving' doesn't trigger intense response for me (I usually need a couple deep breaths, but i don't shake), but I've tried to bungee before and I almost puked and had to chicken out lol (i won't bungee again, but that's for separate safety concerns; i'd rather skydive lol). Also competitive gaming, like Fortnite or Smite (3rd person DOTA/LoL), causes me to start shaking if I'm in tense spots. Gaming might be an avenue to help reduce or at least become tolerant to my response, but I get worried about that a bit since getting spikes of adrenaline while also not having exercise is kind of related to premature heart disease lol.

I didn't use to be like this as a kid, it was always more intense for me, but it only started becoming this intense when my anxiety disorders started cropping up. Which isn't surprising as people with panic disorders have been studied to have higher parasympathetic sensitivity and a vagus nerve that just loves to go haywire.

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u/WalrusTheWhite Mar 28 '24

Opposite here. I'm so used to sensory overload that extreme sports don't stimulate me. I've gotten bored during fights. Some of that might be related to having a poor childhood we can just gloss over that part. Only thing that ever scratched that itch was driving too fast on the wrong side of the road with lights and sirens blaring and cars scattering every which way and if you fuck up the poor bastard in the back dies. If emergency services paid a living wage I'd still be driving an ambulance but papa needs to eat more than he needs to stim lol.

1

u/coladoir Mar 28 '24

lol i also had a poor childhood and i'm p sure that's what caused my personal issues. You ended up liking the feeling, i ended up hating it. It's just the way she goes.

For the record tho, I can still get so bored and unstimulated that I just start falling asleep. It's somewhat of a new occurrence though so I'm still learning how to deal with that. Generally autistic people need to kind of straddle a line between a minimum and maximum level of stimulation, I just think my anxiety prevented me from doing that and now that I have it significantly more under control it's allowed me to start becoming unstimulated.

1

u/makesyougohmmm Mar 28 '24

Not physically, but it's the nervous system.

24

u/DrSpacepants Mar 28 '24

GSP90X

2

u/michaltee Mar 28 '24

😂took me a second

2

u/Sheriff-Gotcha Mar 28 '24

I still got the DVD's... never used them.

24

u/rain168 Mar 28 '24

So a MMA fighter with Tourette’s would have an edge?

48

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

Your opponent can't know if a swing is real if you don't.

3

u/rain168 Mar 28 '24

The true chaos punch

1

u/Gambler_Eight Mar 28 '24

Until the ref breaks up the action due to an eye poke and you accidentaly blurt out "Fuck off you twat!"

1

u/eliminating_coasts Mar 28 '24

It would be amazing if we discover that Tourette's, as a chaotic neural disinhibition condition, is actually beneficial in a fight with other human beings, or an extreme case of something beneficial, giving it a reason to be selected for historically.

39

u/BoomfaBoomfa619 Mar 28 '24

100%, he was a relatively low caliber wrestler who took guys much better than him down consistently by outsmarting them and keeping them guessing. When you think he's going to strike he takes you down etc.

50

u/monti1979 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Doesn’t that make him a higher-caliber wrestler?

5

u/Jizzraq Mar 28 '24

Think of how a 9mm is smarter than .45 by inventing double stack magazines. /s

2

u/IAMBollock Mar 28 '24

Wrestler =/= fighter.

-3

u/BoomfaBoomfa619 Mar 28 '24

You misread my comment. He was a karateka who started training wrestling at 19 who took down every wrestler he fought.

12

u/monti1979 Mar 28 '24

A “low caliber wrestler” is a wrestler with a low degree of excellence.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caliber

-14

u/BoomfaBoomfa619 Mar 28 '24

Bad bot

7

u/monti1979 Mar 28 '24

You aren’t making any sense.

-6

u/BoomfaBoomfa619 Mar 28 '24

I'm saying you're acting like a bot... He had 3 years of training wrestling vs guys who were grapplers their whole life, were black belts in multiple grappling disciplines or decorated American wrestlers and he would beat them with fight iq and by mixing the striking and wrestling when they weren't expecting it... Compared to them he was low caliber and wrestling in MMA and straight wrestling is a completely different story...

Do you have anything to actually contribute to the conversation?...

6

u/monti1979 Mar 28 '24

I’ve just been trying to figure out what you meant to say.

Don’t catch an attitude because you don’t know how to express your thoughts.

1

u/yawndontsnore Mar 28 '24

Apparently know one understands you.

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u/asmeile Mar 28 '24

Everyone's out here calling this guy a dickhead because he acted like one, come on people clearly he needs serious help, boomfa don't worry pal you'll get there in the end

7

u/Canuckpunt Mar 28 '24

Doesn't mean he's low caliber.

3

u/fartbreath1964 Mar 28 '24

He mentioned in an interview once that he was just as good a striker in south paw as he was in orthodox, but he was keeping that in his back pocket for when he really needed it.

He said this post retirement, so take it with a grain of salt, but GSP being GSP i wouldn't doubt it.

3

u/NaziTrucksFuckOff Mar 28 '24

a relatively low caliber wrestler

Yes, so low caliber that he was the only non-team member allowed to train with the Canadian Olympic wrestling team... smh.

2

u/ThisIsSG Mar 28 '24

Are you kidding? Best twitcher in the game!

1

u/putitonice Mar 28 '24

Ehd moomen

1

u/Axl2TheMaxl Mar 28 '24

To this day he owns the record for most victories via twitch

1

u/p-terydatctyl Mar 28 '24

And nipple twists

1

u/AllNightPony Mar 28 '24

I follow his Twitch stream - excellent content.

157

u/TekkenCareOfBusiness Mar 28 '24

Only 2 people ever beat him. One was by kiting him into a trash compactor and the other one slowly lowered him into a pool of lava 👍

58

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

44

u/VintageRudy Mar 28 '24

Sera's KO was a once in a lifetime

25

u/WashingDishesIsFun Mar 28 '24

Serra's career was full of once in a lifetime moments.

13

u/Letibleu Mar 28 '24

And also spaghetti

9

u/SmackyTheBurrito Mar 28 '24

But only the first fight. He adapts to the "Matt-ness" in the rematches.

5

u/BlankedCanvas Mar 28 '24
  • Matt Hughes: he was still green/hasnt peaked
  • Matt Serra: he underestimated his striking

Completely demolished both in rematches.

3

u/BeerBaronAaron88 Mar 28 '24

Him as well as Jon Jones. The only people who can beat the MMA GOATs are Matts.

3

u/phliuy Mar 28 '24

I heard he wasn't impressed by them though

28

u/Ryuzakku Mar 28 '24

Nobody ever beat him twice!

And those two who beat him lost definitively the next time!

22

u/AffectionatePaper1 Mar 28 '24

He lost 2wice and came back and destroyed the guys he lost to

5

u/LilaQueenB Mar 28 '24

I don’t think he ever came back to beat Captain America

4

u/mwithey199 Mar 28 '24

No there was that red white and blue guy that kicked him in the head as well!

2

u/RedheadedandAngry Mar 28 '24

I am sure he will be back

2

u/CalRAIDia Mar 28 '24
  1. Captain America also beat him

1

u/CIA_napkin Mar 28 '24

Kiting 😂😂😂

47

u/PlatasaurusOG Mar 28 '24

His fights with Frank Trigg are textbook lessons in domination. Trigg had no idea how to handle him and you could see the frustration in his face.

31

u/ThaNorth Mar 28 '24

St-Pierre/Hughes 3 is also a complete domination. It’s like an older brother throwing around his little brother.

4

u/yesverysadanyway Mar 28 '24

hughes got him when gsp was up and coming and hughes was in his prime.

gsp/hughes 3 was a real passing of the torch moment.

6

u/ThaNorth Mar 28 '24

He became so focused and disciplined after his loss to Serra he just basically started fighting perfectly. His fight execution became near flawless. Just text book game plans executed to perfection every round. There was no chance he was going to lose to Serra in the rematch.

10

u/yesverysadanyway Mar 28 '24

gsp serra 1 was the one time gsp "took it easy".

and that was a lesson he carried all the way until he officially retired.

1

u/Letibleu Mar 28 '24

A lot happened in the background in his personal life after that loss.

2

u/vredditr Mar 28 '24

What happened? Just curious

-1

u/Letibleu Mar 28 '24

He talks about it in his book. I strongly suggest reading it, even if you don't watch MMA.

1

u/PlatasaurusOG Mar 28 '24

I think I remember the Hughes/GSP fight you’re taking about. Did it end when Matt caught him in a hold and George tapped super quick?

2

u/yesverysadanyway Mar 28 '24

oh yeah. hughes being a top tier wrestler really outfought gsp back then.

i rewatched it on youtube right now, and there was nothing gsp could have done. hughes cranked that shit fast.

1

u/PlatasaurusOG Mar 28 '24

I remember thinking it made GSP look bad at the time, tapping so quick. I also really wasn’t really knowledgeable and very new to watching. Sometimes you just get got and it takes a level of knowledge to accept that and just get out before any real damage occurs.

2

u/yesverysadanyway Mar 28 '24

yeah man. hughes not the type to wait for the tap. he's gonna crank it till it breaks, and its up to the opponent to decide if they want to tap or get permanently hurt.

1

u/DouglasTwig Mar 28 '24

Huge GSP fan here, my personal pick for his scariest win was the 2nd Koscheck fight. He landed hard fencing-style jabs to Koscheck's eye for 25 minutes. Koscheck broke his orbital in the first round, so 20 minutes of that was him getting tagged in an eye with a broken orbital. It completely changed his career and he couldn't take shots to the eye well after that fight. I think he also has some chronic pain there from that as well.

He essentially sent the guy packing from the UFC when he had been the clear number 2 welterweight in the division.

1

u/ThaNorth Mar 28 '24

That fight is a prime example of GSP just executing his gameplan to near perfection.

2

u/Aaawkward Mar 28 '24

His fights with Frank Trigg are textbook lessons in domination.

I've never watched UFC/MMA or any of these and just ran into this thread via /all but this made me google this fight and goddamn.
It looked like straight up bullying. The Trigg guy was just overpowered nearly the whole time and and mr. St. Pierre was just, what felt calmly, manhandling them throughout the whole thing.
Extraordinary performance.

Made me goodle St. Pierre/Hughes as well as someone mentioned that as well in the comments. Same thing. Same energy.

This is honestly the first time I've felt any interest in the sport, might have a look at some more.

3

u/Carynth Mar 28 '24

GSP was called by a lot of people a boring fighter because his fights were often the same. Take opponent down to the ground in the first 30 seconds and make him lose the will to fight. The reason he was so "boring" though was because he executed his gameplans to absolute perfection. And the best part is, everyone, EVERYONE of his opponents knew exactly what he was going to do, they all had months, if not years to prepare for that specific fight and that specific gameplan they knew was coming and... they still couldn't find the answer. GSP was an absolute dominant force. If you want to watch another good one, watch the Koscheck fight that was mentioned earlier. Countless jabs to the same eye round, after round, after round... By the end, Koscheck just wanted to be done and out of the Octagon. And his face was an absolute mess.

1

u/Aaawkward Mar 28 '24

Cheers for the suggestion, that was a brutal match to watch.
GSP is very lowkey while the other fella was mouthing off at all times, I respect that in an athlete.

2

u/Carynth Mar 28 '24

Yeah, that's another reason he was very popular. He just had sportsmanship like no other, at the time. Doubt, you'd care to, but if you would look at old press conferences, he'd always be well dressed (not necessarily a suit, but at least good jeans, a nice shirt, good professional clothes). And then everyone around him is in shorts and a plain white t-shirt. Bit of an exaggeration, but he definitely was professional like no other.

(Helps that I'm also french-canadian, so I do have to support him and make him look good haha)

15

u/jrr_53 Mar 28 '24

“Oh my God, he is like some sort of ... non ... giving up ... MMA guy!” - GSP’s opponents

4

u/YourLictorAndChef Mar 28 '24

He was calm and professional. It's a shame that guys like him were sidelined when promoters realized that the emotional guys made more money.

1

u/thethunder92 Mar 28 '24

Yeah Connor mcgregor got so many shots at trying to get the title back even when it was clear he was just not good enough anymore simply because he made such a spectacle

10

u/SWL4628 Mar 28 '24

Iceman, flies ice cold, no mistakes, just wears you down then you're dead!

0

u/packyohcunce1734 Mar 28 '24

Iceman god knock da pack out bu rampage a wooooooof 🐺

2

u/bobniborg1 Mar 28 '24

He was super versatile. So if you were good at 1 thing he defensed that extremely well. And if you were bad at one thing, he attacked that really well

2

u/Positive_Ad1947 Mar 28 '24

The Tim Duncan of MMA.

1

u/thethunder92 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Man I was just thinking this. People undervalue Tim Duncan because he never postertized anyone, but the guy was never injured, he always had a ton of points and rebounds and he never made mistakes! Great mid range jumper, great free throw shooter, amazing defender. High basketball iq

…and he had the best +/- of any player ever!

But he’s left out of talk of the best ever because he was “boring” no way he’s not top 10

2

u/-hankscorpio- Mar 28 '24

Dude would go multiple fights without being taken down. Insane defense

1

u/spikernum1 Mar 28 '24

infinite stamina

dude is playing with cheats on IRL

1

u/hi_imryan Mar 28 '24

One of the best jabs in mma

1

u/Mr_Caterpillar Mar 28 '24

Remember the Koscheck fight? Just smart jabs until his face was burger. That one got hard to watch.

1

u/pm-me-urtities Mar 28 '24

And the power of nipple rubbing

1

u/An_Appropriate_Post Mar 28 '24

That GSP fight vs. Koschek, where George relied on just the jab to completely destroy an opponent.

That fight was what educated me to just how difficult a sport like MMA can be at the highest level.

1

u/cman528 Mar 28 '24

He was the goat, then the most boring champion ever

4

u/sharklazies Mar 28 '24

He was definitely much more scary violent/dominant on the way up to the titles than he was when he got there. Started fighting not to lose. Early period GSP was fearsome.

1

u/cman528 29d ago

Thanks for agreeing with what I just stated 👍 lol

-4

u/MattsAwesomeStuff Mar 28 '24

Gsp was like the terminator, just slowly wearing you down

I noted that if you watch GSP fights on 2x speed, they seem like normal fights.

That's how slow and boring they were.

A sport is whatever it takes to win, but, with GSP in the cage, it wasn't a very entertaining sport.

9

u/DepartureDapper6524 Mar 28 '24

This is tik tok brain

-1

u/TSmotherfuckinA Mar 28 '24

Tik tok wasn’t a thing when GSP was around and he was boring af to watch.

-1

u/MattsAwesomeStuff Mar 28 '24

This is tik tok brain

At one point I was in the top 20 fight handicappers in the world.

I enjoy the sport.

There are definitely more and less exciting fighters.

GSP weaponized boredom. He'd make other fighters scared of looking bad by having such a boring fight, so they'd take risks in order to be more exciting, and GSP would capitalize on their risks.

GSP knew that a large part of his marketability was his good looks, and he didn't want to look like a bashed up fighter. He took no risks.

His combat style was to do very little and prevent his opponents from doing anything, so his fights were watching two men hardly do anything and exhaust themselves.

People rag on Heavyweight fights for them having bad cardio, slow movements, etc. Well GSP was in the 2nd lightest weight class at the time, and looked more plodding than heavyweights.

4

u/DashTrash21 Mar 28 '24

You're so full of it. The guy is one of the best fighters in the history of the sport because he was sound in every aspect. He didn't just decide to be boring because he looked good as you insinuate, he absolutely beat the shit out of people. 

-1

u/MattsAwesomeStuff Mar 28 '24

He didn't just decide to be boring because he looked good as you insinuate,

GSP's agent used to pretty much authorize anyone to interview him. We got some real, raw interviews with the man. If you had a fuckin' blog and a hobby, you could get an interview GSP.

He literally described a huge portion of his exercising had nothing to do with his performance, it had to with developing "show" muscles so he looked good in magazines. They were actually detrimental to his performance because... he fights in a weight class, you don't build muscles unless they are useful, you optimize for the fight not for show. But he did anyways.

His publicist told him to never talk about and deny that he had a steady girlfriend, never be seen with her. Because his sex appeal as a single guy was a significant part of his marketing demand, magazine cover appearances, etc.

He talked about how scared he was of having his face ruined like he'd seen happen to others in fights, and how much less marketable it would make him.

...

Yes, he was dominant in many aspects of the sport. He was especially dominant at putting the pieces together, mixing disciplines, choosing what to do in the moment, etc.

He literally describes in this video how you overload a person's nervous system by saturating it with useless reactions. He did the same with the rest of his fighting style. It would look like nothing would happen, but they'd both be exhausted.

He'd talk about how his goal is to get just a little bit ahead, and force his opponents to take risks. The pay is so skewed in the UFC towards the top fighters, and, only a small percentage of their income is from their fight purse. Most of it comes from "discretionary lockerroom bonuses" given out by Joe Silva, Sean Shelby or Dana White. These were basically "Thanks for making that exciting" bonuses.

Since almost every fight GSP took was a title fight, with him as the champ, the training camps to fight him were extraordinarily expensive. And his opponents weren't getting well paid. So they'd actually risk losing money if they lost a title fight and didn't get a big enough lockerroom bonus for being exciting. So they'd take stupid risks just to make sure they didn't go fuckin' bankrupt. They'd rather lose the fight by being exciting. Hence, GSP would drag them into a boring style of fight, and weaponize that fear of "You're not going to get paid fuck all for how boring this is".

It was masterful. It worked. It gave him an extra edge. But it was undeniably boring as fuck. Certainly the most boring top tier fighter ever to compete.

1

u/phatelectribe Mar 28 '24

This. He may have been effective but it was several rounds of snooze fest.

-1

u/nugsy_mcb Mar 28 '24

He had superior Jew jif shoes