When Georges St-Pierre sat down with Royce Gracie for a recent podcast, the conversation quickly turned to the same fundamental question that’s shaped MMA since its earliest days…

What does an athlete need to survive at the highest level?

For St-Pierre, the answer was unambiguous:

I certainly believe Jiu-Jitsu is the most necessary discipline that you need to have in your tool bag,

No matter if you’re a good boxer, wrestler, if you don’t have Jiu-Jitsu, you’re not going to survive in the octagon or in a ring for mixed martial art.
Jiu-Jitsu is mandatory.

You need to have a certain level of Jiu-Jitsu just in order to survive.

That belief traces back to 1993, when a 16-year-old St-Pierre watched Gracie beat larger, stronger opponents at the first UFC tournament on a rented VHS tape, at a point when he was close to walking away from martial arts entirely following his karate teacher’s death.

What he saw that night redirected his path completely:

Immediately when I saw you winning it, you inspired me. You changed my life.
I told my friend I was like, this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna follow that man’s path and I want to become like him.

At the time, striking arts like karate, kung fu, and kickboxing dominated the combat sports conversation, while grappling was largely dismissed:

Back in the day, those Inside Karate, Black Belt magazine, all the martial arts magazines, they never put Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling. They never considered those as a martial art.
It was all the standup, striking styles…

Of course, you might be a striker, but if you don’t have Jiu-Jitsu, you screwed up 100%.

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