Koscheck embraces villainous role
After his last visit, it appeared the last place where Josh Koscheck would look forward to returning was Montreal. But in what is easily the biggest fight of his career, and one of 2010's most important bouts, Koscheck will face Georges St. Pierre on Dec. 11 on the welterweight champion's home turf at the Bell Centre.
"I think that match being done in Montreal is good," said Koscheck, whose response sounded like a mix of business sense and outright sarcasm. "Me and Montreal have a great relationship. They really love me there. And I can't wait to go back and shock them all and put Georges on his ass and come out of there with a new belt."
That contradicts what Koscheck had said months earlier when he talked about not wanting the fight in St. Pierre's backyard, and hoping for the fight to be in Pittsburgh, not far from Waynesburg, Pa., where he grew up. UFC president Dana White confirmed that Pittsburgh was a strong possibility. But the combination of St. Pierre's popularity throughout Canada and UFC's prior success in Montreal made the Bell Centre the obvious choice.
The two largest crowds in UFC history have been in the building, and unless the economy scares people away from high ticket prices, this should match the sellout crowd of 21,390 fans that saw St. Pierre regain his welterweight title from Matt Serra in 2008, a crowd that was among the loudest in UFC history. The fight also should draw the largest live gate for a UFC event since last year's record-setting UFC 100.
While Koscheck didn't choose at first to be one of UFC's villains, the fans largely have disliked him, and at times hated him, dating back to his television introduction on the first season of "The Ultimate Fighter" in 2005. And when put in the bad guy role, he doesn't exactly run from it.
St. Pierre (20-2) is currently UFC's second-biggest drawing card behind Brock Lesnar. Koscheck (15-4) is known well enough as a contender that a title match on its own should do strong numbers. But when you throw in three straight months of basic cable television buildup as rival coaches on the current season of "The Ultimate Fighter" on Spike TV, interest will only increase.
Since the Serra win, St. Pierre has been on a tear, winning a record-setting 25 straight rounds. His last round loss, a close round in which two judges out of three voted against him, was the first round of his Aug. 25, 2007, match with Koscheck.
Koscheck came one third-round missed takedown away from a possible split-decision victory that would have put him in the cage with Serra for a title shot, and every St. Pierre fight since has been completely one-sided.
At the time, the story of the fight was that St. Pierre, with no sport wrestling background, won the wrestling battle against one of the most accomplished wrestlers in the sport, a four-time All-American and one-time NCAA champion.
Koscheck has been busy in recent weeks opening a gym, American Kickboxing Academy-Fresno, in his new home city, and he will continue to commute to San Jose for most of his training during the next three months. Koscheck believes the match is going to be wrestling oriented, and AKA has become a strong wrestling gym with Cain Velasquez going for a championship and two-time Olympian Daniel Cormier, former NCAA champion Mark Harris and Jon Fitch in camp. Koscheck has gone so far as to dare St. Pierre to stand with him by saying St. Pierre has been wasting his time and money training with famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach, when St. Pierre knows he's not going to stand up.
"[Wrestling is] definitely a big deciding factor of who's going to win this fight," Koscheck said. "Because I know that Georges, obviously, he's wasting a lot of his money and a lot of his time working on [stand-up] because he doesn't want to stand up. If you look at his last two fights, he's very conservative in his fights. He plays it safe. So we know what Georges' game plan is. And if Georges stands with me, then that's great.
"But if Georges comes out and tries to just wrestle like he has in the previous fights, then, wrestling is going to be the difference and [I] have to have my wrestling on, and I plan on having that."
Koscheck has claimed after filming the reality show for six weeks that St. Pierre's squeaky-clean image is fake.
"I definitely know that I got under Georges' skin, and he's even admitted it in his interviews," Koscheck said. "And I kind of like that. I like the fact that now Georges is pissed off. I like the fact that he's training hard because when I whip his ass on Dec. 11, then he's not going to have any excuses."
St. Pierre, who has been through similar taunting against Serra, Matt Hughes and B.J. Penn, admitted that he's irritated.
"Yes, he definitely got to get in my head, which is a good thing for me," St. Pierre said. "Look at all the guys I've fought in the past that have done that against me, I did very well. Because they got in my head, so it gives me more motivation to train harder."
The last time Koscheck was in Montreal was on May 8, the night he earned this title shot with a win over Paul Daley. The match itself was uneventful, but the scene surrounding the match was anything but.
Koscheck, the superior wrestler, worked his game plan of taking down Daley, a strong striker, and keeping him there for three rounds, verbally taunting him while they were on the ground. But after the fight, Daley sucker-punched Koscheck. Koscheck then went on the mic and claimed the Pittsburgh Penguins would knock the Montreal Canadians out of the Stanley Cup playoffs (they didn't), he would beat St. Pierre, and the city would go 0-for-2 in championships.
After the fight, Koscheck noted he had different ideas of what to say in his postfight interview based on how the crowd reacted to him. When they hated him, he went with it and afterward noted that the crowd was booing him for doing the exact same fight that St. Pierre, their hero, had been doing. At the time he had no idea the title shot he earned would be in the same arena.
The crowd's intense outrage toward Koscheck after the Daley win was monumental even by rabid UFC fan standards. As he was leaving the cage, he was pelted with anything and everything fans could get their hands on. And he kept a low profile the rest of the night, not bothering to show up for his advertised after-party at a local nightclub.
"So it makes for a great story," Koscheck said. "I'm the villain. Georges is the squeaky-clean superman guy. And I'm the villain to come into Montreal and get the chance to walk out of there with an opportunity of fighting in Montreal and fighting for the world title."
And Koscheck can't resist playing the villain card to the hilt.
"Just from being around him, I really truly believe that he portrays himself to be this guy, and I think he's definitely not," Koscheck said. "So he comes across different than what he is in person. And that's my opinion, and I'm entitled to state my opinion."
St. Pierre responded that Koscheck is lying.
"The first lie was that he was happy fighting in Montreal," St. Pierre said. "That's not true. He's not happy at all. The second lie is that I'm a fake person. As you're going to see on TUF 12, that is not true at all. I never derail from the personality that I am and from what I stand for."
