Show Over, Koscheck Ready for Reality of St. Pierre

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For all the talking he did on the show, Josh Koscheck is surprisingly tight-lipped at first when questioned about his role in the just-ended 12th season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

“The show needed some entertainment. It was nothing more than that. I don’t really have too much to say on it,” Koscheck said during a Monday conference call to promote his UFC welterweight title bout against champion Georges St. Pierre at UFC 124 this Saturday in Montreal.

The UFC’s top 170-pound contender garnered much discussion and criticism from MMA fans and pundits for his performance on the reality series, both as a coach of the competition’s lightweight hopefuls and a constant antagonist to rival St. Pierre. Koscheck did concede that his black hat “definitely became a little bit bigger” as the show aired, and further opened up on the subject when asked how much he felt editing had affected viewers’ ideas of him and his coaching.

“I don’t even know if I’m allowed to comment on that. I just know that you have editing and you have six weeks to work with these [fighters]. It’s like, these guys had problems before they came in. If they weren’t ready to come on the show and win their fights, there’s nothing too much that I can do in six weeks to make them great fighters,” said Koscheck, himself a competitor of the first season of the show.

“To be entertaining, you have to do certain things,” Koscheck added, referring to his “heel” role on the program. “And you know what? The big picture is that Saturday, Dec. 11, me and Georges St. Pierre get to fight and settle this thing.”

If Koscheck’s trash talk was simply for the sake of selling his rematch with the man who bested him in August 2007, he seems to have gotten it out of his system. While sounding confident as ever on Monday, Koscheck refrained from any robot imitations, bad French Canadian accents, or any of the other myriad put-downs he lobbed at the champion on-screen. Instead, at times, the 33-year-old former NCAA wrestling champion sounded downright respectful.

“I think that Georges is a great athlete, and I think he brings a lot of athletic ability to the table when it comes to a fight, and I think I’ve got to be prepared to fight everywhere. So, that’s what I’ve prepared for.”

And how has “Kos” prepared for one of the sport’s most difficult and frustrating fighters, especially after having been so thoroughly dominated in their first meeting?

“Well, I think three years ago, my primary focus wasn’t becoming a complete mixed martial artist and putting things together. I underestimated the fact that Georges has the ability to put his wrestling with his mixed martial arts, and I think that’s gonna be a different case this time,” said Koscheck. “I brought a lot of good people in to wrestle, obviously, because I know that Georges probably has done the same. We have Olympians in our gym coaching us. We have a lot of very good wrestlers that came through. It was a big part of why I lost my first fight, so I’ve gotta be smart and put myself around the right people to prepare for victory. And I did that.”

One X-factor for Koscheck could be the seven-month layoff he was forced to endure as he filmed “TUF 12.” While GSP is coming off of an even longer stay on the shelf, Koscheck prefers to keep more active than his opponent. However, Koscheck says, with American Kickboxing Academy training partners like Jon Fitch, Aaron Simpson and Mike Swick constantly “beating the crap out of you,” there’s little room for ring rust.

“We fight at AKA three times a week. It’s not where we just go in there to spar -- we go in there and fight three times a week,” said Koscheck. “If you have a bad day in there, lemme tell you, you’re gonna go home and you’re gonna question yourself because you got your ass kicked in the gym.”

After praising his own team, the otherwise well-behaved challenger couldn’t resist taking one little dig at St. Pierre and his camp.

“There’s a lot of questions around this fight. Is Georges St. Pierre going to be a so-called ‘boring Greg Jackson fighter’ and try to take me down? Or, is Georges St. Pierre going to have the balls to stand toe-to-toe with me?”