Georges St-Pierre ‘very surprised’ by Conor McGregor’s TKO loss, shares advice for return

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Georges St-Pierre ‘very surprised’ by Conor McGregor’s TKO loss, shares advice for return

Georges St-Pierre was caught off guard by Conor McGregor’s recent defeat in MMA.

St-Pierre, a former UFC welterweight and middleweight champion, didn’t expect Dustin Poirier to stop McGregor in their rematch at UFC 257. Poirier scored a second-round TKO over the Irishman, setting the score even this past Saturday in Abu Dhabi.

“I thought Conor was going to win, but I was wrong,” St-Pierre said on Michael Bisping’s “Believe You Me” podcast. “I was very surprised. Will he keep his composure under pressure? I think one of Conor’s biggest strengths is that he overwhelms his opponents with his pressure, with his presence.

“All the information he gives his opponent’s brain and the talking and all that, a lot of his opponents fold under pressure, but Poirier stayed sharp, and it was a real testament of how good he is. Now it will be really interesting to see how Conor comes back from it. I believe he can come back from that loss.”

The defeat put McGregor on a 1-2 run since getting stripped of the UFC featherweight and lightweight titles. The Irish star has only competed three times in the octagon in over four years. And at 32 years of age, some wonder if McGregor will get back to the top or if time has passed him by.

St-Pierre believes McGregor can rise again, but he’ll need to make some big changes if he wants to regain his status as champion in the UFC.

“I think he needs to be reborn,” St-Pierre said. “He needs to change things in his training and in his life that he believes were the causes for his failure. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not as long as he believes.

“So in my case, when I lost to Matt Serra, I trained myself to believe that I lost to Matt Serra because I underestimated him. Maybe I wasn’t scared enough, maybe I didn’t put too much in training, that’s what I tried to force myself to believe. Maybe it’s not true, but the important part is that he believes in it so he can build on his confidence from it.

“He needs to find what he thinks he did wrong in his previous preparation leading up to the fight, whether it’s his training leading up to his fight or whatever, and not make the same mistake twice.”

St-Pierre would like to see McGregor get his hands on Poirier once again for his next fight and settle the score with a trilogy bout. The Canadian believes McGregor shines best in immediate rematches, given his work ethic and self-belief.

The leg kicks were a big part of McGregor’s downfall in the rematch. As far as advice, St-Pierre has no easy solution for Poirier’s leg kicks, but he did share a few tips that worked for him when he was an active fighter.

“Me, what I liked to do when I used to fight guys with good kicks like Dan Hardy or Carlos Condit or Thiago Alves, I used to blitz them.” St-Pierre explained. “Time the kick. Sometimes I made it on purpose when I let them kick, and I blitz them with my straight right. There’s many ways of using it.

“But if you’re legs are wide open and you’re going to try to shield it like muay-Thai style, you won’t have the time to do it because your legs are too wide. Unless you fight with a stance that your legs are closer, but if you do, your vulnerability will be compromised standing up. So there’s no perfect way, there’s always a counter to the counter.”

Georges St-Pierre ‘very surprised’ by Conor McGregor’s TKO loss, shares advice for return