Georges St-Pierre carried a brick with Matt Serra's name on it following advice from a sports psychologist

02/23/2025 12:11 PM

When Matt Serra knocked out Georges St-Pierre in 2007, it went down as one of the biggest upsets in combat sports history.

After avenging his loss to Matt Hughes and claiming the UFC welterweight title, Georges St-Pierre was booked to fight Matt Serra for his first title defense.

Serra went on to knock ‘Rush’ out in the first round, scoring the biggest upset in UFC title fight history, in the process, making St-Pierre feel like an ‘idiot’.

Despite St-Pierre at the time being widely regarded as the pound-for-pound number one, the rivalry that ensued will go down as one of the biggest in the sport’s history.

Georges St-Pierre explains why he carried a brick around with Matt Serra’s name on

Following the historic loss, St-Pierre admitted it was the most humiliating thing in his career and that it took up a lot of space in his mind.

‘Rush’ was booked to fight Josh Koscheck just four months after his loss to Serra and he admitted that he couldn’t get the loss off his mind so decided to go and see a sports psychologist.

“You were haunting my mind,” the Canadian told Serra recently when the two spoke about their rivalry.

“I wanted to get back and erase that mistake so the sports psychologist said to me, ‘Georges, you carry a lot of bricks’, so he made me, he wrote (your name on a brick) and made me carry a brick in my training bag with your name on it.

“I carried that in my bag for weeks and weeks and weeks and it was getting heavy because when you go in Tristar, you have to go up the stairs and already my bag is heavy, I thought this is getting ridiculous,” he continued.

The welterweight GOAT explained that once he was told by his sports psychologist that he could get rid of the brick, he went to a river in Canada and launched it into the open water.

“I was calling him like, ‘Can I get rid of the brick, it’s ridiculous?’, he was like, ‘Nope’, and I kept carrying it and I was like, ‘I’m very tired now, can I get rid of the brick?’, he was like, ‘Yes’.

“So I went near the river, grabbed the brick, and threw it in the river and it sounds weird but it’s an action that I did that manifests, that had a psychological manifestation on me because I felt like, relief,” he said.

St-Pierre avenged his loss against Serra kicking off historic title reign

Thankfully for the Canadian, the work with the sports psychologist paid dividends as he was able to instantly return to the win column with a unanimous decision win against Koscheck.

St-Pierre then went on to win the interim title against Hughes in a trilogy fight, earning him a rematch against Serra. ‘Rush’ only needed two rounds to exact revenge on Serra, putting the rivalry to bed.

That kicked off the beginning of a historic title run for St-Pierre, who still holds the record for the most amount of title defenses in the 170lb division.