GSP would rather street-fight Ngannou than Bas Rutten

The clip opens on a ranking that sounds backwards if you only look at size. In a street fight, Georges St-Pierre says, he would rather fight Francis Ngannou than fight Bas Rutten. Lex Fridman, who spent years as a nightclub bouncer, answers with a demonstration rather than a theory. Bang, bang, bang: it is a street fight. Everybody underestimates the kick in the groin. That is the first thing to do, then follow up immediately, then the left elbow. The sequence is the opposite of a fair UFC entry. It is the kind of dirty, continuous output Rutten has long taught, and it is why GSP's preference is not a joke about punching power.

People ask him, often, what separates a street fight from mixed martial arts. His answer is clean. In the street there is no referee. There is an instigator, and there is the other person. The best place to be, in life, for a street fight, is always not to be the instigator, because that is how you hold the element of surprise. Cage fighting takes the start time away from both people and gives it to a third party. The street does not. Whoever owns the first moment owns the fight, which is the first thing GSP wants understood before he shows a stance.

If you are already in a heated argument and you feel a fight coming, GSP's first piece of advice is physical and specific. Never show your center line. Always go on the side, and put your hands up. He calls it one of the best things to do, a self-defense tactic used all around the world. From that position, the distance he has to travel to cause a lot of damage is very minimal, very short. He can go boom, boom. He is also already protected, because if the other person tries anything, the hands are up and he is ready to respond to any aggression.

The posture does two jobs at once. Palms can look like you are talking someone down, which keeps you from reading as the aggressor, while the hands sit in the path any punch must travel. A person standing square, arms at the sides, has to lift and then send the hands. A person already bladed, hands at chest-to-chin height, only has to turn. GSP does not dress that up as philosophy. He treats it as preloading: the hands are where they need to be before the moment arrives, so the response does not have to be invented under heat.

The next sentence sounds like a contradiction until he splits strategy from tactics. If you are in an argument and you feel the heat rising, hit first. You do not want to fight, but you want to hit first. Depending on the situation, that can be a straight preemptive shot. If you are much less physically strong than the aggressor, he names three targets: the eyes, the genitals, the neck. Then you leave the scene. He adds a legal-looking hinge that he treats as practical. If he is standing in that hands-up posture and the other person touches him, that person has declared war, and now he can perform a self-defense move.

Fridman checks the preference: striking, not wrestling? Yes. Always striking first, and leave the scene, especially if you are a kid or someone who does not have the physical strength of the aggressor. GSP notes that he is a UFC champion, so the outmatched-kid clause does not apply to him the same way. The tactical key still does. Always use the element of surprise. When you strike, strike first, and strike to cause as much damage as possible: eyes, neck, genitals. After that, leave. That is the goal of having surprise. Hitting is a way to create an exit, not a way to win a round that nobody is scoring.

Fridman asks about weapons, half-joking that you run faster. GSP does not hesitate. Weapons matter. If someone has a weapon and attacks him for his money, he gives the money, even if he is Georges St-Pierre and a UFC champion. The title does not buy a contest with a blade at half a meter. There is a line he will not cross. If someone puts a knife to his throat and tells him to get in the trunk, he does not want to go in the trunk, because he has seen that movie and it has a bad ending. That is the situation in which he starts talking about what he can do.

First, keep the hand as close as possible to the weapon. Second, stay at as close a range as possible, which runs against the urge to back up. He will act scared. Fridman supplies the face: look scared. GSP plays it: please, please, please, then boom. He uses the body, then he can break. The idea is to use the entire body to deflect the weapon, not only to grab. If the blade is coming out one way, he smothers with the body so that if the attacker tries to come back with the knife it is solid. If the blade points the other way, the hands change and he still smothers. Fridman names the wrist. GSP agrees, and adds that at a long distance there is too much space. You want to get close to the thing that can cause the most damage.

He switches to a grab. If you are a kid, or someone comes and grabs you by the body, he grabs the head and puts fingers inside the eyes, which will make the opponent release immediately. Then you leave. Fridman confirms: thumb in? Thumb in the eyes, push in. Blind them. There are no rules. The eyes are always his favorite target, because if you cannot see, it is very hard to fight. The normal reflex, when people cannot see, is to grab their own eyes, which releases the grip that was holding you. He says this without softening it. The technique is simple. The hesitation, if it happens, is what he is trying to remove in advance.

Fridman will not drop the necktie. He still thinks GSP is wrong, and that a tie can be used the way a rear naked choke uses a collar, a tool for a head snatch. GSP's counter is not that a tie is harmless. It could be an advantage if it is a fake tie, something that can go, that clips off, like the tail of a reptile. You pull the tie, it comes off, and now he has a head start. Fridman says the words: element of surprise. Exactly, GSP says. It is all about the element of surprise. You want to strike first. Surprise is key in the street. The same word has now covered not being the instigator, the bladed stance, the first strike, the scared act on a knife, and a tie that comes off in the other person's hand.