The future career of temporarily retired Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor Georges St-Pierre hinges on one simple question: will the aliens who periodically steal time from him once again use those hours wisely?

For those not in the know about mixed martial arts, GSP was a champion welterweight who for years was not only unbeaten, but largely untested.

Then he fought Johny Hendricks, a man who seems to consist entirely of fists and beard.

St-Pierre technically emerged from the fight with his 12-bout winning streak intact, taking a decision that was close, controversial, and almost certainly wrong. This win created one of the stranger spectacles in fight history as the “victorious” St-Pierre, both eyes blackened and the rest of his head either cut or puffy — Hendricks was basically untouched, except for a pair of hands grotesquely swollen from pounding on Georges — offered what seemed less a post-fight interview than a cry for help, hitting repeatedly on the themes:

-He didn’t remember much of the fight

-He needed to go away for a bit

-He no longer slept

-He was going crazy

At this point it should be noted that Georges is from Montreal and speaks English as a second language. While he’s entirely fluent, he has a thick French accent. A French accent makes everything a person says in English sound either:

1. Highly sexy (French actresses: I’m thinking specifically of adult performer Katsuni, but sure there are others who star in movies that don’t feature orifices) (or at least, don’t feature them quite so prominently)

2. Deeply silly (Pepe Le Pew)

Georges is in Le Pew’s camp. So there was Georges looking like he’d been trying to knock a brick wall down with his face and muttering in an incoherent-but-clearly-troubling manner while sounding like he was doing a dead-on impression of a horny animated skunk.

Creepy as it was, there was even more disturbing undertone to the event.

With so many people feeling he’d been robbed, Hendricks was guaranteed the immediate rematch… and in this rematch, to ensure he didn’t lose a decision again, Hendricks would need to hit St-Pierre harder and more frequently.

Soon after this Georges St-Pierre announced a temporary retirement.

Here’s where it gets interplanetary. Dude who used to be on News Radio/dude who used to be Fear Factor/dude who currently does UFC commentary Joe Rogan revealed he’d done an interview with GSP before the bout and Georges talked about driving along and suddenly realizing that hours had just vanished, which he attributed to… aliens. (You can listen to the interview here.)

Rogan noted that, particularly in light of the St-Pierre’s post-fight comments about overwhelming exhaustion and memory loss and slipping into madness and generally wanting to escape, this seemed problematic.

And I agree it is, but not for the reason Joe does.

St-Pierre himself ruled out that the missing hours could have a connection to getting repeatedly pummeled in the brain by noting that the incidents had been occurring since childhood and hence before his career even started. (And yes, a timeline from someone with severe memory loss is bound to be extremely reliable.)

I choose to take St-Pierre at his word and believe that, throughout Georges’ time on this planet, aliens have repeatedly stolen chunks of his life from him.

Which is why I have to say: aliens, I expected more from you.

Up to this point, GSP’s career has a relentless upward trajectory, with only two losses (both avenged) and Georges generally looking more impressive each time he stepped in the ring, not to mention he’s picked up millions of dollars along the way (his net worth is generally estimated as being between $7 and 25 million) and generally presented himself as a classy, hardworking individual doing Canada proud.

Whatever the aliens did with him during that lost time, clearly it worked.

Now, however, GSP has gone from king of the world to cautionary tale overnight. I’ve noted that mixed martial artists tend to reach the end abruptly, but still, I’ve never seen a slope quite this steep.

I blame Georges’ alien masters.

And I humbly say: Alien overlords, shape up. Shape up not just for Georges and me and fight fans everywhere, but from all those Canadians who need something to distract them from the fact that Rob Ford is somehow still the mayor of Toronto and, I predict, soon to be their next Prime Minister. (Were I Canuck voter, I would disagree with his “smoking crack” plan but be willing to learn more about his “getting hammered every chance possible” initiative.)

Of course, there are also rumors that all these developments are mostly due to Georges being distracted by the discovery he got someone pregnant whom he very much did not want to impregnate, but I think we can dismiss that one, because it would mean a professional athlete was having a child out of wedlock and that’s just crazy.

Unless Georges knocked up one of the aliens, in which case look forward for him to resume his career soon because intergalactic paternity suits don’t come cheap.

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