Georges St-Pierre doesn’t dismiss ring rust, but feels it won’t impact his performance against Michael Bisping.
St-Pierre is set to make his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) return against Bisping for “The Count’s” middleweight title. The two will battle later this year. “Rush” hasn’t competed in a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) bout since Nov. 2013.
During a Q&A session on the Facebook page of Hayabusa, St-Pierre said ring rust won’t be a hindrance come fight night (via MMAFighting.com):
“I believe in ring rust. People say there’s no such thing but I believe in ring rust. It will be an issue but I’m a very experienced man. I’m one of the guys that’s spent the most time in the octagon in the UFC, maybe the most, I’m not sure in terms of time. I think because I have a lot of experience, the more time I will spend as the fight goes, the more comfortable I will be. For me, it will be very important [at] the first second of the fight. That’s when I will have to be very aware, very careful. That will be the most dangerous moment for me because when you have ring rust, that’s the hardest part of the fight. When you just step in and the fight starts, that’s where the ring rust comes from, the difficulty of adaptation. But after a few minutes, I will be back to normal.”
