(The face of pure French-Canadian evil. / Image coutesy of MMAWeekly)
By Nathan Smith
*SPOILER ALERT* Georges St. Pierre is guaranteed to lose his next big fight. He will finally meet an opponent that he can not out-wrestle for 25 minutes and his next foe will be able to trade punches with him at will. GSP will positively get his ass handed to him. Sorry Johny Hendricks, you can stop reading now because this post has nothing to do with you.
The reigning UFC welterweight champion has been cast as a villain in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier due for release on April 4, 2014. St. Pierre will play the roll of Batroc the Leaper (aka Georges Batroc) and although I embrace my inner geek, I was never much of a comic book guy nor did I ever have a pube mustache or own a set of dice with more than six sides, so I think it would be best to let the Wikipedia link describe GSP’s character.
“Batroc has no superhuman abilities, but is in peak physical condition in every respect. He is an Olympic-level weightlifter and has extraordinary agility and reflexes. His leg muscles are particularly well developed enabling him to leap great distances equal to an Olympic athlete. He is an expert hand-to-hand combatant and specializes in savate (French-style kickboxing). He is also a skilled military tactician, having formerly been in the French Foreign Legion.
Batroc is also an experienced thief and smuggler, and can speak both French and English. Although, as a mercenary, he does not hesitate to perform any number of criminal acts for his clients, Batroc has, by his own rights, a strong sense of honor, and he will turn against any client whom he feels has unfairly deceived him into committing crimes to which he might not otherwise have agreed.”
St. Pierre joins Randy Couture (The Expendables and the sequel), Quinton Jackson (The A-Team), and Gina Carano (Haywire) as the latest MMA star to cross over into legitimate big-budget Hollywood films. GSP is the current UFC PPV kingpin and because of his popularity and GQ exterior, it was only a matter of time before he was brought to the silver screen. Couture and Jackson had moderate box office success with their films while Carano’s movie kind of tanked, but with a built-in audience that accompanies a super hero film franchise, Captain America: The Winter Soldier will probably be breaking the bank, considering the previous two movies in which Captain America appeared (The Avengers and Captain America: The First Avenger) raked in a combined $1.8 BILLION worldwide (that is NOT a typo).
Specific details are not known for the size of St. Pierre’s role, but it is assumed that Batroc the Leaper will be an ancillary character. Couture and Rampage were allowed to use their own voices within their films but Carano’s vocal tone was manipulated during the post-production of Haywire to make sure her character was “a completely different entity,” or some such bullshit. Although Batroc hails from France and GSP has a fairly thick French/Canadian accent, one can only wonder if his lines will be given the Carano treatment or completely dubbed like Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York. There is also no word on what costume GSP will be wearing for the film but we can guess that it will consist of something skin-tight, and hopefully it will not offend Chan Sung Jung.
Captain America is okay but he is way down on the list of this writer’s favorite Captains. There was Captain Stubing, Captain Kangaroo, Captain Kirk and this guy at the very top, but will any of you Taters go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier just because of St. Pierre’s involvement? Conversely, will all the GSP haters boycott the film due to his participation? Sound off below.