Georges St-Pierre: Ring Rust Won’t Be Factor Against Michael Bisping

Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre will come out of retirement to challenge for the UFC middleweight championship against Michael Bisping later this year. It’s a fight that has been talked about a ton as some fans like it, and some do not. There is a lot of questions leading into this bout such as how will St-Pierre look after a four-year layoff from the sport.

St-Pierre believes he has the answer and revealed it while he was doing a Q&A for Hayabusa on their Facebook page on Monday. St-Pierre believes in the concept of ring rust but that because he is such an experienced fighter, he doesn’t think it will play much of a factor in their bout.

“I believe in ring rust,” St-Pierre said (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “People say there’s no such thing, but I believe in ring rust. It will be an issue, but I’m a very experienced man. I’m one of the guys that’s spent the most time in the octagon in the UFC, maybe the most, I’m not sure in terms of time. I think because I have a lot of experience, the more time I will spend as the fight goes, the more comfortable I will be. For me, it will be very important [at] the first second of the fight. That’s when I will have to be very aware, very careful. That will be the most dangerous moment for me because when you have ring rust, that’s the hardest part of the fight. When you just step in and the fight start, that’s where the ring rust comes from, the difficulty of adaptation. But after a few minutes, I will be back to normal.”

St-Pierre is in fact one of the most tenured fighters in UFC history as far as actual cage time goes as in 21 UFC fights, he has amassed 5 hours 28 minutes and 12 seconds of fight time. The experience will certainly come in handy as St-Pierre has been out of action for well over three years but Bisping is experienced as well. It’s this second part which St-Pierre says may be tougher to deal with but is ultimately part of the appeal in challenging himself.

“When I knew that we were going to fight Michael Bisping, when I signed it, that’s when I decided to try and put [on] a little bit more weight. I won’t be able to put [on] a lot because I’m a natural guy, but I’m already a little bit bigger than I was. I’m the biggest I’ve ever been, right now, in my life. Bisping will still be bigger than me, but I’m confident it will help…

“It’s not my natural size. I’ve never been that big in my life, but as a man, I’m gonna be honest, men want to have bigger muscles. They want to be big, so it’s a good thing. I’m happy to be a little bit bigger. [Smiling]. This is not the weight class I’m used to competing at, but for that fight, I want to make history against Michael Bisping. It’s a guy that I want to fight, and he wants to fight me. It’s the guy with the highest stock right now, and he’s the man to beat, so that’s why I’m doing it.”