UFC Retrospective Series Part 8: The Next Generation

In anticipation of Saturday's landmark UFC 100 event, CBSSports.com has run a weekly, eight-part UFC retrospective series, looking back at some of the pivotal moments, events and figures that shaped the sport. This is the final part of that series.

It has been less than 16 years since the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event took place, but the sport of MMA is scarcely recognizable from its original form as UFC 100 approaches this weekend.

St. Pierre is a great example of a complete MMA fighter. (UFC)

The Octagon remains, but seemingly everything else has changed. An originally scant set of rules has been widely expanded. Judges, rounds and weight classes have been added. Events are promoted much more as sport than spectacle. UFC has surpassed boxing and professional wrestling as pay-per-view's most successful attraction. A sellout crowd in Las Vegas Saturday night will likely pay more than $4 million to attend UFC 100 while more than a million households will order the event on pay-per-view.

But perhaps the most noticeable difference between the UFC then and the UFC now is the quality of fighters who enter the cage. In the early days of UFC, fighters mostly trained in one discipline. Few were in peak athletic shape. Advanced strategy was one-dimensional at best, non-existent at worst.

Fast forward 15 years, and there is a new generation of fighters. Now everyone in the UFC trains in a wide variety of disciplines. All top fighters train exceedingly hard and UFC weigh-ins feature a procession of shredded physiques. Detailed strategies are worked out in advance. Between better pay and corporate sponsorships, fighters can become very rich. And there are now premier athletes who decide at a young age they want to become MMA fighters and dedicate themselves to this goal.

If there is one man who best symbolizes this new generation of MMA fighter, it's UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre. A freakish natural athlete, St. Pierre excels in all aspects of fighting. He is known for seeking out top-flight training partners and he implements carefully crafted strategies for each opponent. Outside of competition, St. Pierre is known for his respectful and good-natured demeanor, and has netted a series of lucrative sponsorships including a high-profile deal with Gatorade. As the sport moves forward, St. Pierre is emblematic of the sort of fighter fans can expect to watch.

St. Pierre began training in multiple disciplines from an early age. He started in karate at the age of seven and received three black belts in the discipline. Then he saw video of Royce Gracie in the UFC and realized that there were important techniques missing from his repertoire.

"When I saw Royce Gracie the first time I knew that's what I wanted to do," St. Pierre told CBSSports.com in a wide-ranging interview. "I was surprised how effective that was because at the time I didn't know any submission holds. When I saw him I wanted to learn that new weapon."

St. Pierre began training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and subsequently added muay thai, boxing and wrestling. He also kept some of his karate techniques and still wears a karate band on his way to the Octagon as a ritual and tribute to his roots.

"One martial art is not complete by itself," St. Pierre notes. "You need many martial arts to be well rounded. The important thing is you need to combine a grappling sport with a striking sport."

After training for a number of years, St. Pierre had his first professional fight at the age of 20 against Ivan Menjivar. While many fighters are eased into competition with a series of softer opponents, St. Pierre fought quality opponents from very early on.

In his first five fights prior to entering UFC, St. Pierre fought future UFC fighters Pete Spratt and Menjivar, future Pride fighter Travis Galbraith, future EliteXC fighter Thomas Denny and future Shooto fighter Justin Bruckmann. It worked out for the best as St. Pierre won all five fights, but it wasn't something planned in advance.

"It worked out that way by chance," St. Pierre says. "I had a manager who was a good friend and I had to make my mark in the sport. My second fight was for the Canadian championship. I didn't know if I was ready or not but I didn't have the choice."

St. Pierre had a key advantage in his early career, the local TKO promotion in Quebec. TKO was one of the stronger regional promotions in North America, and it allowed St. Pierre to fight close to home against a number of solid opponents. If St. Pierre had grown up elsewhere, his career might have gone differently.

"At the time I didn't have a choice to go somewhere else to fight," St. Pierre says. "I was working three jobs at the same time and also in school studying so I didn't have the time to travel somewhere else. TKO was very big so it was the perfect way to get started."

In 2004, St. Pierre joined the UFC. He scored a pair of impressive wins against Karo Parisyan and Jay Hieron and was quickly billed as one of the most promising young fighters on the UFC roster. Most expected to see St. Pierre continue to slowly move up the ranks, which led to surprise in many circles when St. Pierre was offered a title fight with UFC Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes. Many doubted whether St. Pierre was ready for the fight, including the challenger himself.

GSP's loss to Matt Hughes in 2004 helped him gain confidence. (UFC)

"I didn't believe in my chances," St. Pierre admits. "I took the fight because I was new in the UFC and didn't have a choice. I couldn't even look him in the eyes. I was too intimidated. I was just fighting not to lose instead of fighting to win. After the fight I realized I was doing very well. It gave me a tremendous mental edge in recognizing I could beat anyone in the world."

Following the loss to Hughes where he fought well but was caught in an armbar at the end of the first round, St. Pierre embarked on a five-fight win streak that earned him a rematch with Hughes. During this period, many of St. Pierre's opponents thought that they had discovered a weakness in him. He was a phenomenal athlete, but opponents like Frank Trigg and B.J. Penn questioned his toughness as a fighter and suggested that they could mentally break him. It was a criticism that backfired.

"It's true that the more my opponent is talking about me the more it motivates me," St. Pierre says. "Not everyone talks bad about me so sometimes I need to motivate myself in other ways. I never fight with anger, but I fight with my heart and very methodical. The more obstacles put against me, the stronger it made me."

When St. Pierre finally received his rematch with Hughes, he was more than ready for the challenge. St. Pierre by that time had developed an excellent wrestling game to complement his already solid striking game. He kept Hughes from taking the fight to the ground and destroyed Hughes on the feet. St. Pierre seemed indestructible and many assumed he would hold the welterweight title for a long time to come.

That prediction could not have been any more wrong. St. Pierre's first title defense came against longtime lightweight Matt Serra, and some odds makers made St. Pierre a 10-1 favorite. Serra proceeded to catch St. Pierre with hard punches and score a first-round TKO victory. It took St. Pierre years to reach the top of the sport, but only months to fall back down.

At the time, it looked to be the worst moment of St. Pierre's career. But in hindsight, St. Pierre says that it was an invaluable experience.

"The loss was the best thing that happened to my career," St. Pierre argues. "It taught me a lot of lessons. Before, I thought I knew what it took to be champion but I learned what it takes to stay champion. I don't make the same mistake twice. You need to work hard. You need to make sure your training comes before PR stuff. You have to say no sometimes. You need to keep your work ethic. You feel like you're in an invincible box as champion where nobody can touch you but you aren't."

St. Pierre hasn't lost since then, rolling off a series of impressive victories. After defeating Josh Koscheck and securing a rubber-match victory over Matt Hughes, St. Pierre was rewarded with a rematch against Matt Serra for the welterweight title in his hometown of Quebec. St. Pierre won a one-sided bout in front of an electric crowd, and to this day considers it the greatest moment of his career.

St. Pierre's most recent win against 155-pound king B.J. Penn was perhaps the most impressive of his career, but it was in some ways overshadowed by controversy following the fight. Penn complained loudly about alleged greasing by St. Pierre and tried unsuccessfully to get the result overturned. If Penn's posturing bothers him, St. Pierre does a good job disguising it.

"I just think that B.J. Penn is trying to find a reason for losing," St. Pierre observes. "He needs to find some excuses. I don't mind. It doesn't change anything in my life to tell you the truth."

Now St. Pierre is focused on his next opponent at UFC 100, Thiago Alves, who St. Pierre labels the toughest of his career. Alves has won seven straight fights, including wins over top contenders Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck and Karo Parisyan. He is one of the biggest men in the 170-pound division and boasts dangerous muay thai skills and excellent takedown defense. It's a fight that St. Pierre takes very seriously.

"I've fought great strikers before but Thiago Alves is very different," St. Pierre says. "He's a very big welterweight and he's very well rounded, so he brings something new. But I like great challenges so I'm excited for the fight."

In the post-fight press conference following his victory over B.J. Penn, St. Pierre was asked about the status he has attained as one of the best and most popular fighters in the sport. St. Pierre's answer reflected a level of humility and introspection one wouldn't expect from an elite athlete at the peak of his career.

"Everything that goes up comes down," St. Pierre noted. "One day you can be champion and on top of the world, but in a click you can go back down. That's why right now I enjoy every moment of my career like it's the last one. All the [sport's best fighters] were up and then came down. It's going to be the same thing for me. One day something's going to happen."

Saturday night it will be up to St. Pierre, like all elite athletes, to further postpone that inevitability. Fighting has come a long way from UFC 1 to UFC 100. St. Pierre's tremendous skills are a testament to that rapid evolution, but there are no guarantees they will continue to be enough as that evolution proceeds.

Todd Martin has covered mixed martial arts for the Los Angeles Times, Wrestling Observer, SI.com and CBSSports.com. He can be reached at toddmartin4l@aol.com.