April 7, 2007, was a terrible night to be a sports fan in Montreal. Les Canadiens lost to the hated Leafs in the final game of the regular season, eliminating them from playoff contention. Later that evening, to add salt to the wound, then-UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre lost his title to Matt Serra, a huge underdog who had earned his title shot by winning a reality show based around fighters who had lost their chance in the UFC.
Fast forward just over a year later and things are looking brighter on the island. The Habs won the Eastern Conference, and are currently up two games to one over the Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, and next Saturday GSP has the opportunity to regain his title in his hometown at the sold-out Bell Centre.
Since the upset, St-Pierre has fought twice. First he beat top ten welterweight and former All America wrestler Josh Koscheck, and did it by out-wrestling the wrestler. Georges then went on to defeat future hall of famer Matt Hughes for the second time, even more impressively than his first win over the multi-time champion.
Serra, on the other hand, hasn’t fought since his last meeting with GSP. First the title was held up for the sixth season of The Ultimate Fighter, which was supposed to culminate in a meeting between Matt Hughes and Matt Serra for the title. Instead Serra ruptured a disc in his back. GSP stepped into his place and, as mentioned, defeated Hughes, earning the “interim championship” and the right to fight Serra for the real thing.
A war of words has commenced between the two fighters, with most of the talking coming from Serra and his camp. A few weeks after their original bout, GSP made remarks on a local Ontario radio show presenting a handful of excuses for his loss, ranging from health issues in his family, personal problems, and injury. He then went on to say that he wouldn’t have taken the fight if it had been Matt Hughes, a remark that could easily be taken as a slight to Matt Serra.
Serra responded in classic — but not classy — Matt Serra style, in which Serra disparaged GSP’s Franco heritage, telling the “Frenchy” to go drink some red wine, go to his hockey game, and to shut up. Serra, of course, didn’t stop there, continuing to knock GSP anytime there was an open mic around. In the past couple of weeks, Serra’s friend and training partner Pete Sell threw further fuel on the fire by claiming that GSP is a “mental midget,” referring not as much to his intellect but to his mental toughness and his admitted visits to a sports psychologist.
Saturday, however, the time for talking is over, and the two will finally square off again. Will the real Georges St-Pierre show up, or is Serra in his head? Will it be a manhandling such as the ones GSP has been doling out in the UFC since he arrived, or will it be another case of the smaller, less-respected Long Islander pulling off another gigantic upset?
Twenty-one thousand people will be on the edges of their seats — if they use them at all — in the Bell Centre on the 19th, with hundreds of thousands tuning in on pay-per-view to find out.
Allez-y GSP!
Tags: Sports, MMA by azamien
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