Georges St. Pierre's trainer Firas Zahabi "GSP Doing Great After Surgery"

UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre has begun the process of recovering from a torn ACL and he’s doing well, according to trainer Firas Zahabi.

“He’s doing great. He’s doing fantastic,” Zahabi told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “He’s doing the post-surgery rehab, and then after he’s done doing that -- it should be done in March -- he’s going to start his sports rehabilitation.”

St. Pierre underwent surgery in December. He’ll soon be rehabbing under the guidance of Gavin MacMillan, the founder and head trainer at Sport Science Lab.

“He trains Troy Polamalu from the NFL,” Zahabi said. “Tremendous trainer. I’ve been corresponding with him for the last little bit since Georges got injured. We have complete faith in him. He’s been through this process before with NFL players. The doctor was more than happy with the results of the surgery. Things are looking really good. Georges is extremely motivated to come back. He’s very excited. He’s got that fire roaring now bigger than ever. Everything is lined up for success hopefully.”

A knee injury forced St. Pierre out of an October title defense against Carlos Condit. He was expected to recover for a fight against Nick Diaz on Feb. 4, but instead he tore his ACL in early December and that bout was also scratched.

“He had an existing injury before the tear,” Zahabi said. “He kept training, and it tore. He realized he was trying to save time and not miss a fight, and it turned out that he’s going to miss a whole year. I don’t think he’ll come back too fast. It was a mistake he did before, and I think he’ll be sure not to repeat it again.”

Diaz has suggested St. Pierre’s injuries are the result of how he trains. Zahabi acknowledged that St. Pierre trains explosively, but he also said they’re careful to minimize injury risk.

“For Georges, working explosively has always worked for him,” Zahabi said. “… You can get an injury from any type of training. Anything you do a lot of, you can get hurt at. You’ve got to manage the risk and do the training that’s best suited for you. Endurance training works for Nick, and Georges’ training has been working for him.” 

MMA Trainer Firas Zahabi Says Georges St-Pierre's Recovery Is Going "Very Well"

Since undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL a few weeks ago, Georges St-Pierre has been out of the spotlight. He has been working hard to rehabilitate his knee and make a successful return to the Octagon.

The champion suffered the injury during a training session earlier this month and it forced him out his scheduled bout with Nick Diaz at UFC 143. Since then, there hasn't been much update on St-Pierre's status.

St-Pierre's trainer and close friend, Frias Zahabi, recently spoke to MMAFightCorner.com about the champion's injury. He revealed that the surgery was a success and that "Rush" is doing well.

"GSP is recovering very well," Zahabi said. "Georges will start rehab at The Sports Science Lab, has been in contact with me regularly and is motivated to start rehabilitation. Everyone is very confident on a full recovery and we are all looking forward to the next training"

Zahabi opened up about his relationship with St-Pierre and said the two remain very close. While Zahabi is widely considered to be one of the most successful trainers in Montreal, the Tri-Star gym coach said he originally began training in mixed martial arts.

It was during his introduction to MMA that Zahabi befriended the French-Canadian. As he explained:

"I have been working with GSP for 10 years now. We started out as training partners. We got along very quickly and become very close. After that Georges asked me to be his head coach and take his training more seriously. He wanted me to oversee all his training as we have similar mentalities on how to train. We have been training together ever since."

While St-Pierre remains sidelined, his original opponent, Diaz, will meet Carlos Condit for the UFC interim welterweight title at UFC 143.

Kicking GSP when he's down.

An ACL tear is not an injury to take lightly. Georges St. Pierre knows that now more than anyone.

Doctor's predict that it will take six to nine months for St. Pierre to heal up and get ready to reenter the Octagon and defend his title.

That also gives six to nine months for the haters to hate their very hardest.

Since St. Pierre injured his knee before UFC 137 message boards have been lit up with people arguing that St. Pierre is avoiding fights or that he isn't what he used to be. Since tearing his ACL, the message boards have been on fire.

And now he's being attacked everywhere.

St. Pierre was recently named one of the year's most over-hyped athletes by Lefko of Sportsnet.

There has been talk that his injuries are damaging his legacy and that he is no longer one of the top two pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

Some are claiming that he should be stripped of his title because he can't defend it.

And he has even been called a little girl because he's afraid of heights.

Talk about kicking a man when he's down.

As it stands, St. Pierre is still one of the greatest fighters who ever lived and his talent and skill in the Octagon has spoken and continues to speak for itself.

People criticize him for not finishing fights. They criticize him for "playing it safe." They criticize him for getting hurt. They criticize him for not fighting while hurt. Next, they'll criticize him for being human.

No matter what he does, the haters will always find something to criticize. No matter how much hate they spew, they're not fooling anyone but themselves.

GSP Named One of the Most Overhyped Athletes of the Year

Looks like UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and Sportsnet's Perry Lefko won't be exchanging gifts this holiday season.

Lefko's annual year-end list of the top 10 most overrated athletes included the French-Canadian kingpin.

As is often the case with GSP critics, Lefko ripped GSP for fighting safe and not finishing opponents.

"Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White said in December 2011 that St-Pierre is still the most popular athlete in Canada in terms of his international recognition -- we're not so sure about that -- but the welterweight champion is sidelined indefinitely with damaged knee ligaments. And even before his injury, St-Pierre was taking verbal shots from the public, the media and fighters for his inability to put away opponents."

Those who watched the dominant champion's last title defense against Jake Shields at UFC 129 had to be disappointed, as the bout degenerated into a lackluster kickboxing match after GSP was the recipient of an inadvertent eye poke by his Octagon adversary.

However, Lefko didn't just criticize the quality of the fight though, he also questioned St-Pierre's toughness.

"He grabbed the international spotlight in April for headlining the first UFC card in Toronto, producing GSP mania. A record UFC crowd of more than 55,000 packed the Rogers Centre to finally see the conquering Canadian hero and he went the full five rounds with Jake Shields in what was more of a clinic on how not to lose a fight than actually win it.

Yes, GSP had problems seeing out of one eye because of a shot in the fight, but we've seen fighters with far bigger issues turn it up a notch. It was boring at best and continued a pattern of St-Pierre going the full distance without delivering the knockout blow or submission. Heck, the fight before it on the card was way more entertaining than the main event."

The 170-pound superstar has only lost twice in 24 career fights and he avenged those two losses to Matt Serra and Matt Hughes.

However, despite an impressive resume as far as career wins goes, St-Pierre has not had a traditional finish since his TKO win over Serra at UFC 82 for the UFC welterweight title.

Since then, the champion has rattled off six wins, one of which was a TKO corner stoppage of B.J. Penn, but the other five bouts were won via unanimous decision.

"Rush" will be on the shelf until approximately September of 2012 due to a serious ACL injury, once again postponing a heavily anticipated matchup with former Strikeforce welterweight title-holder Nick Diaz.

In GSP's absence, Diaz will fight Condit for the UFC interim welterweight belt at UFC 143, set to take place on Feb. 4th.

Other athletes who made the list include professional golfer Tiger Woods (and his caddy Steve Williams), the New Jersey Nets' Kris Humphries, LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Denver Broncos starting quarterback Tim Tebow.

Jake Shields Would "Love an Opportunity" To Fight Anderson Silva

The last time we saw Jake Shields in the Octagon, Jake Ellenberger ended his night in a mere 53 seconds. Prior to the loss to “The Juggernaut,” he dropped a unanimous decision to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 129.

Shields will face Yoshihiro Akiyama in his next bout, which will take place on February 26 in Saitama, Japan. While the Akiyama fight is at welterweight, Shields may very well be considering a UFC future at middleweight, months ahead of that UFC 144 battle.

While a loss against Akiyama would give Shields the dreaded three straight defeats in the UFC, it seems unlikely that he would be released, as he remains a viable “name” for the promotion. His move to middleweight would not be spurred on by the thought that he can’t compete at the welterweight level, but instead it would most likely be brought on by the fact that his training partner and friend Nick Diaz could very well become the interim UFC welterweight champion.

Diaz will face Carlos Condit on February 4 in the main event of UFC 143. With welterweight champion St-Pierre on the shelf due to recent ACL surgery, the UFC has elected to award the winner of the Diaz versus Condit fight the interim title while St-Pierre heals. If Diaz does capture the crown, the two fighters have made it very clear that they would never want to face each other in a non-training environment.

If Shields does move to middleweight, he would welcome a shot at the 185-pound champion, Anderson Silva.

“That’s a fight I’ve wanted for a long time,” Shields told MMAFightCorner.com. “Anderson’s a phenomenal fighter, one of the best of all time, but I just think stylistically the guys that match up best against him are wrestlers with good jiu-jitsu.

"Chael did great with him until he got caught in a triangle right at the end. His worst matchup’s against good wrestlers and jiu-jitsu, and it’s just he’s a great matchup. Obviously it wouldn’t be an easy fight because I think he has the best standup in the sport, but that’s a fight I would love an opportunity to do.”

Obviously, a number things have to fall in line for Shields to make that move to middleweight, but if they do, Shields would gladly add his name to the growing list of fighters that want a shot at the man that has never lost inside the Octagon, Silva.

The Road back for GSP

The UFC welterweight champ tore his ACL when training for a bout with Nick Diaz. While the UFC moves forward with an interim belt, George St. Pierre is at the beginning of a long road back to having a healthy leg again.

That started with surgery, which was deemed a success, and now rehabilitation. Above, he is in a continuous passive motion machine, which prevents GSP's leg from getting stiff without putting him in pain.

GSP's Knee Surgery a Success

After blowing out the ACL of his right knee in training and withdrawing from his scheduled title defense against Nick Diaz, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre successfully underwent surgery yesterday in Los Angeles. As he tweeted: “Dr. ElAttrache says my surgery (ACL patellar tendon autograft) was huge success! Ligament very strong. Tks for support!”

St. Pierre wrote last week that he expects to make a full recovery from the surgery in six to nine months. We don’t have an e.t.a. on exactly when he might return to face the winner of Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit, but after two knee injuries and more than a year on the sidelines, it could turn out to be the toughest fight of St. Pierre’s career.

After the jump, more details about GSP’s knee injury from a conference call St. Pierre held last week with his doctor, Sebastien Simard:

“In the preparation for Carlos Condit, he injured his left knee during a sparring session. The diagnosis at that moment was a sprained MCL, a diagnosis that was confirmed by the MRI. Georges tried to continue his training camp even though he had the pain and while doing another sparring session, he had the little injury on the right leg at the time and the diagnosis on his right leg was a pulled hamstring. So, having injuries on both knees, we decided to cancel the fight against Mr. Condit.

Georges went on and did his physical therapy and rehab and everything went perfectly. He recovered completely from the injury to the left knee. He started back training and while doing wrestling, he tried to defend a takedown and at that time, he suffered a hyperextension on the right knee. He felt pain and he heard a crack inside his knee at that time. It was terrible to walk and there was not much swelling on the knee so he tried to continue training but in the few days after, he felt the pain and the instability was increasing so he called me, he was in Vegas and we did an MRI on Monday morning. I saw Georges yesterday with the results of the MRI and the physical exam that I did confirmed that Georges suffered a complete tear of his ACL and a small tear of his internal meniscus on the right knee, which is not the same knee that he suffered the sprained MCL in mid-October.”

“Considering the instability and the pain, surgery for Georges is mandatory. There’s no way he can compete with the problem on the right knee. We’re looking at doing an ACL reconstruction with meniscal repair. The technique that’s going to be used is the technique of anatomical ACL reconstruction, which is the best technique for this kind of injury…I’ve been the treating doctor for Georges for five years now and I did two surgeries on him already for elbow endoscopy. His recovery rate is completely off the charts. He has an amazing genetics and he has extraordinary physical capabilities and I know Georges has the discipline and the determination that’s gonna allow him to be back to the same level of competition that he was before the injury.”

Get well soon GSP, looking forward to seeing you back in the cage.

GSP undergoes surgery to repair his ACL

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre underwent surgery earlier today to repair a knee injury that he suffered a few weeks ago.

According to MMAFighting.com, the surgery was conducted under Dr.Neal ElAttrache, one of the most renowned surgeons in sports medicine and a current team physician for Major League Bseball's Los Angeles Dodgers.

St-Pierre suffered the injury by overcompensating it during a wrestling training session a couple of weeks ago.

The champion, who had recently come off a minor injury to his left knee, felt pain in his right knee but attempted to continue.

The St. Isidore native continued his training camp with no swelling in his knee, but the pain only worsened.

St-Pierre underwent an MRI to reveal that he had a torn ACL in his right knee that will force him to withdraw from his upcoming title bout against Nick Diaz, scheduled for February 6th at UFC 143.

St-Pierre's personal physician, Dr. Sebastien Simard, explained during a recent teleconference that the surgery was mandatory and it would reconstruct the champion's ACL, as well as repair some damage to his meniscus.

Simard was optimistic that St-Pierre will return to the UFC in the future, but the injury should require him to be out of action for six to nine months depending on the rehabilitation process.

In the meantime, an interim welterweight title bout was scheduled due to St-Pierre's absence, and Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz will meet in the main event at UFC 143.

Superfight between Silva and Jones not happening

Despite disposing another former UFC champion in Lyoto Machida, it isn't likely Jon Jones will face Anderson Silva in a dream fight that fans have been wanting for some time.

The UFC light heavyweight champion recorded his fifth straight victory after he successfully defended the title at UFC 140 this past weekend. Jones, who was making his second title defense, overcame a difficult opening round against his opponent to submit Machida in the second round.

However, UFC President Dana White said Jones' recent success hasn't earned him any super-fight with the 185-pound titleholder anytime soon.

"I don't see that fight happening anytime soon," White told reporters during the post-fight press conference.

Jones' current dominance over the light heavyweight division has drawn comparisons to Silva, who has ruled over the middleweight division for the past five years. Also, Jones' lanky frame and creative striking techniques are parallel to that of the Brazilian, and thus, has created a substantial amount of hype surrounding the potential bout.

With fellow pound-for-pound kingpin, Georges St-Pierre, currently sidelined with a torn ACL, some fans' have favored the 24-year-old over the French-Canadian to compete against Silva.

But White shot down the idea, citing Jones' inexperience as a possible factor.

"He's 24 years old. He's just getting out there and fighting all the best in the light heavyweight division," he said. "What people have to realize, too, is Anderson Silva is 37 years old. They're in two different weight classes."

Jones' recent victory has granted him some much-needed rest, as he won't likely make his next title defense until mid-2012 against either Rashad Evans or Dan Henderson.

Meanwhile, Silva has been out of action since August when he made his last title defense against Yushin Okami at UFC 134. The Brazilian is expected to return by early summer next year.

So that's probably it for superfights in the UFC, personally I don't think that it will ever happen as new contenders to emerge in each weight class time and time again so we can't really say that the champions have cleaned out their divisions.

GSP out 6-9 months according to Doctor

In the height of Georges St. Pierre's devastating ACL injury, in which many have already ruled out the welterweight champ's return in 2012. His doctor has said that he would be out only 6-9 months for a full recovery. I know it is still quite a long time table and with training in addition to the healing time frame, it would be a while until we see GSP back in the Octagon. But, at least the wait isn't as long as many suspected.

In other news, UFC President Dana White believes that the welterweight champ will be back better than ever in spite of the injury. In a tweet, Dana White said that GSP takes good care of his world class physique and that such injuries happen even to the very best in any sport.

In the mean time Nick Diaz will face off against Carlos Condit for an interim welterweight championship at UFC 143 on February 4 in a bout of the two front runners for GSP's title.

They will will eventually meet the injured champion down the road.

The End of an Era?

In the blight of the announcement of Georges St. Pierre's ACL blow-out, there is now a lot of speculation that the man known as "Rush" will never be the same and that it is now an end of an era.

As is it GSP has been criticized as of late for not being able to finish fights. Touted as a knock-out artist and a submission specialist during the early part of his career, GSP was finishing opponents left and right be in on the feet standing or on the ground. That's until he ran into Matt Serra which saw him losing his UFC Welterweight title and losing the exciting fighter which had the killer instinct of finishing opponents.

I have to say that I have been a GSP fan from the start and I really hope that he bounces back. With that said, it is hard to image him coming back in the same from the ACL injury, however an injury like such does not only affect you physically it will also affect your psyche. And for a fighter who relies on explosiveness in the way he fights, if anything is certain it's that he will surely never be the same fighter when he comes back, but for MMA pundits to declare an end of an era, I'd like to think that is a little bit too premature.

UFC 143: Georges St-Pierre Injured: Nick Diaz & Carlos Condit for Interim Title

According to Dana White's Twitter, Georges St-Pierre has once again gone down with an injury, and he will be out for 10 months.

According to the tweet, GSP blew out his ACL, and Carlos Condit will now face Nick Diaz for the interim UFC welterweight title.

This just continues the jumble in the welterweight division recently, as there have been numerous switches as of late.

First it was to be GSP-Diaz. Then it was GSP-Condit.

Then that fight was scrapped due to a St-Pierre injury, and Condit decided to wait for a title shot, which he ended up losing his chance at.

Then GSP-Diaz was scheduled once again, which is now off due to a St-Pierre injury once more.

The Condit-Diaz winner will, in all likelihood, face off against St-Pierre when he is due back from injury.

Originally on this card, St-Pierre was going to fight Diaz for the welterweight title, and Condit was going to fight Josh Koscheck for a likely No. 1 contender position.

It is unclear if Koscheck will remain on the card.

Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz will go down at UFC 143 in Las Vegas on February 4th.

This is truly just to bad.

More updates on this as it develops.

Is Mayhem Miller getting his walking papers?

UFC President Dana White was quoted in an interview after the TUF 14 Finale, and by the looks of it he wasn't very happy with Jason "Mayhem" Miller's performance in the main event.

He was quoted saying:

“It's one of the most lopsided fights I've ever seen… I'm disagreeing with people. I didn't give Mayhem Miller the first round. He had a quarter of a mount and didn't do a thing,” he told Heavy.com

Asked if Miller will get another chance he said, “I don't know, we'll see. He didn't have a good performance against Georges St. Pierre and he definitely didn't have a good performance against Michael Bisping.”

We will definitely wait on the developments of this story as Dana White already doesn't like Mayhem to begin with, but it is still to early to assume anything as Mayhem put on one of the most entertaining TUF's in recent memory.