Freddie Roach and Georges St-Pierre team up to capitalize on boxing’s takeover of UFC fighting

UFC women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk has thrown 2,085 punches and attempted just three wrestling takedowns in her rise to capturing the title. Men’s bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt was asked about an upcoming fight plan and held up his right fist.

And returning former welterweight titleholder Georges St-Pierre has hired seven-time boxing trainer of the year Freddie Roach to help plot a victory over middleweight champion Michael Bisping at Madison Square Garden in Saturday’s UFC 217 main event.

It all points to the fact that striking has been unquestionably stamped as the most important of all disciplines in mixed martial arts.

“Before, Freddie was busy with [champion boxers Manny] Pacquiao and [Miguel] Cotto, but having him this whole camp is like a fighter’s fantasy,” St-Pierre said. “The way you prepare yourself is to always be an antagonist to your opponent. That’s how you counter boxing.”

Bisping ridiculed St-Pierre’s past interest in takedowns, which have exhausted several minutes of mat-jostling appreciated only by the well-studied aficionados of MMA.

“You don’t want to get hit. You don’t want to strike. You’re going to try to smother me and bore everyone to death,” Bisping told St-Pierre at a UFC 217 news conference last month. “I don’t know why you hired a really good boxing coach. I’m going to come out there, punch you in the face a few times and hopefully knock you out.”

T.J. Dillashaw, has been spotted at Southland boxing gyms preparing for Saturday’s co-main event against unbeaten Garbrandt, who has relied on his punching power as champion.

Roach, while working at a training session last week at his Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood with World Boxing Organization light-middleweight champion Cotto and striking-skilled Bellator MMA prospect Aaron Pico, said he doesn’t consider himself MMA’s new guru — at least not yet.

“[Bisping] thinks I’m going to switch Georges into a boxer, that that’s why [I’m] here,” Roach said. “But I’m not going to make the same mistake they made with Ronda Rousey and tell him he’s,” such, “a good boxer” that he should box exclusively, Roach said, referencing Rousey’s 2015 knock-out loss by former pro boxer Holly Holm.

Freddie Roach, left, is the longtime trainer of boxing legend Manny Pacquiao.

(Philippe Lopez / AFP/Getty Images )

“Georges’ A-game is the floor. [Bisping’s] best punch is the left hook, his most comfortable shot. But we’ve been working quite a bit on the counter shot to that, and I think it’ll be very successful.”

England’s Bisping discounted that one discipline is more important than a fighter’s internal drive.

“Fighting is a very difficult sport, but the best attribute anybody has is this,” Bisping said, clasping his heart. “This is what counts, the heart and the mind. And I beat Georges on both of them.”

Amid concerns that the 36-year-old Canadian could be pressing his luck by returning from a four-year absence to fight for Bisping’s belt in a heavier division, St-Pierre has been comforted by boxing sage Roach about the task of going toe-to-toe with someone two inches taller.

“The issues of the guy’s size that we hear so much about … I told [St-Pierre], ‘Listen, fighting tall guys like that is so much easier and fun than fighting a shorter guy,’ ” Roach said. “I tell him don’t worry, ‘You’re a better athlete than he is. You’re a better fighter. Your technique is better. You have better takedown [skill].’”

Roach doesn’t want St-Pierre to duck under a punch, knowing that MMA fighters can deliver hard knees to such a vulnerable target.

With Cotto set to retire following his Dec. 2 fight at Madison Square Garden against Sadam Ali and former seven-division champion Pacquiao likely calling it quits after one more 2018 bout, the new MMA venture with St-Pierre makes business sense for Roach.

“If this sport does take over one day, I’ll be right in the middle of it,” Roach said. “If you’re bringing in someone who really knows boxing, plus working on the submission holds and all that, the sport’s only going to get better. We know there ain’t nothing better than a one-punch knockout.

“MMA is a combat sport. I know a lot of boxers want me to hate that sport, but I don’t see it as a competitor.”

UFC 217

Main event: Michael Bisping (31-7) vs. Georges St-Pierre (25-2) for Bisping’s middleweight belt

When: 7 p.m. Pacific time Saturday

Where: Madison Square Garden

Television: Pay-per-view, $59.95; preliminaries begin at 5 p.m. on Fox Sports 1

Undercard: Cody Garbrandt (11-0) vs. T.J. Dillashaw (15-3), for Garbrandt’s bantamweight belt; Joanna Jedrzejczyk (14-0) vs. Rose Namajunas (7-3) for Jedrzejczyk’s women’s strawweight belt; No. 2-rated Stephen Thompson (13-1-1) vs. No. 4 Jorge Masvidal (32-12), welterweights; Johny Hendricks (18-7) vs. Paulo Borrachinha (10-0), middleweights