Georges St-Pierre has offered some advice to UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
St-Pierre (26-2 MMA, 20-2 UFC), a former two-division champion and UFC Hall of Famer, defended his welterweight title nine times before he relinquished the belt and stepped away from the sport in 2013.
St-Pierre cited the pressure of being champion as one of the main culprits of his decision to walk away and issued a warning to five-time defending middleweight champ Adesanya (23-1 MMA, 12-1 UFC) to stay the course.
“It’s heavy the crown, my friend, and it’s only going to get heavier for you,” St-Pierre said on Adesanya’s YouTube channel. “I’m honest with you. I like you. I’m telling you the truth: Heavy is the crown. Nobody can understand. But it gets worse, and it adds more weight to your shoulders every fight. Every fight is bigger and bigger, and the criticism is worse, and the expectations are more and more. Keep that fire.”
St-Pierre, who held UFC gold for almost six straight years at one point, recalled how being champion made it hard to differentiate between the genuine people and the people who had an agenda.
“Everybody would be nice with me,” St-Pierre said. “Everybody will be nice with you because of what you accomplished. I see how someone is nice, how he is with the waiter, how he is with the driver, how he is with the guy at the lobby. A lot of people, it’s insecurity – they try to be someone that they are not.”
Adesanya will look to notch his sixth title defense when he meets former kickboxing foe Alex Pereira in the UFC 281 main event next month at Madison Square Garden in New York.
