GSP explains why he licked fingers, pinched his nipples before bouts

Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Georges St-Pierre has explained why some JacksonWink fighters used to lick their fingers and pinch their nipples in the cage.

Want to know why Jackson’s MMA — now JacksonWink — fighters used to lick their fingers and pinch their nipples before a fight? Former two-weight UFC champion George St-Pierre has (sort of) explained why.

Some of the best fighters of all-time such as current pound-for-pound number one Jon Jones, UFC Hall of Fame nominee Rashad Evans and St-Pierre have trained at the JacksonWink MMA gym in Albuquerque. The longtime welterweight champion St-Pierre recently spoke to ESPN about the reason fighters at the gym pinched their nipples in the cage.

“It makes you disconnect for a split second because you’re so stressed,” St-Pierre said. “You only think about this [the fight] and then it just makes you disconnect, it’s crazy. It makes you remember to do something that has nothing to do with the fight, so it slices the situation and makes you reset a little bit.”

Why did @GeorgesStPierre and the other fighters of Jackson's MMA pinch their nipples before fights?@arielhelwani got to the bottom of it by asking GSP just that pic.twitter.com/RysYxyMf68

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) April 15, 2020

The JacksonWink nipple pinch is just one of the many bizarre trends MMA fighters used to do before or after their fights. Former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson used to fight with a toothpick in his mouth and even trained with it in as well. 

Wanderlei Silva used to roll and stretch his wrists together whilst giving his opponent a death stare, Valentina Shevchenko always does a victory dance called the “Lezginka” after her fights and Jon Jones starts his fights by crawling towards his opponent.