During today’s UFC 124 press conference from Montreal which featured the UFC president Dana White, as well as the main and co-main event fighters.
For UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre the pressure of Saturdays fight may have started to get at him as he shot back at his critics today.
St-Pierre was asked about comments by previous opponents who say the French-Canadian was not the fighter he was in his last fight.
“That’s not true, my style of fighting depends on who I’m going against,” St-Pierre stated. “If you look at my fight against Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves they were some of the most exciting fights of the year in the UFC.
“Jon Fitch, I knocked him down like three times in the fight, I tried to finish him,” noted the champ. “Thiago Alves, you know I used a different strategy to take him out of his comfort zone but I knocked him down one time in the fight standing up.”
The champ then opened up more comments from the champ who criticized those who have questioned his ability to finish fights, as well as not respecting the abilities of his opponents.
“It’s always seems that people criticize me according to my last fight, but the truth is…let me put it this way, against Dan Hardy I had a good game plan and if I would have finished the fight in the first round with the armbar at the end of the round, nobody would have said nothing. People would be saying ‘George St-Pierre is the greatest, blah, blah blah.’ Now because the line is very tiny between a decision and a finish, people are being disrespectful to Dan Hardy.
“I’m not fighting a tomato can here, I’m fighting the best guy in the world here,” stated St-Pierre who admonished his past critics.
“Josh Koscheck is the number one guy in the world, Dan Hardy was the number one contender. You need to give credit to the guys who are stepping in to fight me, they are the best on the planet. So I think you need to give credit to the guy, he (Hardy) did a perfect arm bar escape and people don’t even acknowledge it.”
Dana White was supportive of St-Pierre’s comments, saying he couldn’t have put it better himself, acknowledging the ability of the champs past opponents.
Saturday night St-Pierre will face Josh Koscheck in his hometown of Montreal and will defend his title for a fifth straight time.