UFC 129 – Georges St. Pierre says he’s happy to mix it up on the ground with Jake Shields

UFC welterweight champion, Georges St. Pierre has today made it clear that he has all the confidence in the world when it comes to his own ground skills when he steps into the octagon later this month against Jake Shields, even going as far as to say he can submit the former Strikeforce middleweight champion.
Speaking via ESPN.co.uk, St. Pierre said:

“Jake Shields hasn’t lost in six years, he’s won 15 fights in a row, but he hasn’t fought me. The UFC world title is a different game. He’s a guy I’ve wanted to fight for a long time, and he’s the greatest welterweight – the guy to beat, we’re gonna clash together and it’s going to be a good fight.

“Jake Shields is the best jiu-jitsu guy in the UFC right now. I know what he’s going to want to do to me, he’s going to try and set up his takedowns with strikes, take me down, mount me, and try to submit me from there.

“He doesn’t know what I’m going to do to him. I can knock him out standing, I can knock him out on the floor or I can submit him. I’m not afraid to go on the floor with him and that’s something different that he’s never faced before. Everyone he has fought was afraid to go on the floor with him. Not me.”

“I’m a cleverer fighter. I will dictate the pace of the fight, and it will finish with ‘and still UFC welterweight champion, Georges Rush St-Pierre’.”

St. Pierre has come under increasing pressure to finish fights inside the distance after going twenty-five minutes with Josh Koscheck, Dan Hardy and Thiago Alves in recent times. Can he put Shields away before stepping up in weight to challenge Anderson Silva for his middleweight crown?