Nominees for the yearly award included Jarome Iginla, Chantal Petitclerc, Daniel Nestor, Justin Morneau, and St. Pierre. GSP easily won the award grabbing 89% of the total vote.
Sportsnet is Canada’s premier sports entertainment channel. This marks the first time that Sportsnet has named a mixed martial artist as athlete of the year.
“It’s an honour for me to have this award and being the first MMA guy to receive something like this,” St-Pierre told Sportsnet. “I want to congratulate the other nominees because they have done an incredible job in their respective sports, making this an even more special honour.
I want to thank everybody for their support and voting for me — I want to be a good Canadian ambassador for the sport and represent MMA well.”
George St. Pierre began 2008 as the UFC welterweight interim champion after defeating Matt Hughes at UFC 79 in December of 2007. Four months later in April, St. Pierre travelled home to Montreal for UFC 83, where he defeated Matt Serra to regain full control of the welterweight title. At UFC 86 this past August, St. Pierre defending his belt against Jon Fitch.
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tom b
Ben Cartlidge
Shawn Smith
JStein
StuDog
LaM
Angelina
haha thats my boy! proof positive that Canada loves its MMA, i wouldnt have thought that 89% of the voter would know what MMA is let alone know who GSP is AND vote for him.
GSP rules North America
its starting to appear that way EH? lol.
i checked the link for Sportsnet and of course there always that one tool whos gotta leave the “human cockfighting” message, so you know me i couldnt let it go, so i signed up and set him straight lol.
they have yet to post my comment, its been a few hours now so im starting to wonder if they didnt like what i had to say and just scrapped my message lol.
haha i saw your post RJ, you finished that guy man lol. I dont think the point could have been argued any better, nicely done!
but im still gonna have to put the hurt on you in UFC 2009 :)
lol i left a few more for the hater, there even making it easy for me lol. i didnt realize there were still people around who thought of MMA as bar fighting and sh*t like that. it crazy who stupid these people are with comments like:
“Shame on Sportsnet for giving this so called “sport” any credibility. You may as well go looking for the local bar brawl and award a champion.”
and
“Who? Amazing that the top athlete was someone who participates in a ‘sport’ that 10 people care about.”
im sitting here thinking to myself “where the f*ck do these people come from? do they not watch the sports channel that the website is dedicated to?” i mean for real, they show Utimate Fight Nights and TUF, they used to show PRIDE all the time, these people had to have seen one fight or at least got the hint that other people are watching it. its wild how ignorant some people can be, i hate football but i know d*ck about the sport so how can i go around telling people why it sucks, ya know?