Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre has no use for oddsmakers.  "The odds, it's ridiculous," St. Pierre said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. "People, they make the odds, they don't even acknowledge the true skillset of Jake Shields, and that is something that really (ticks) me off."  The Ultimate Fighting Championship's 170-pound titleholder and challenger Jake Shields spent 25 minutes giving innocuous answers on the call before St. Pierre launched into an exposition while making the case for his opponent. Anyone who buys into gambling lines that list Shields as a 4-to-1 underdog does not understand grappling, St. Pierre says:  "I'm going to tell you something, guys, about Jake Shields.  "When everyone thought he was going to lose to Robbie Lawler, I knew he was going to win. I knew it.  "When everyone thought he was going to lose to Dan Henderson, I knew -- I told all my friends; I was watching the fight -- I knew he was going to win.  "I knew every single time that Jake Shields was an underdog going to fight, I have the firm belief that he was going to win.  "People, they don't realize, because they see a guy get knocked out; it seems it's very violent. They see Dan Henderson with a very powerful overhand right; he knocked out many people. Robbie Lawler, obviously a very powerful puncher; he knocked out many people.  "So people forget that a guy who's got good submission holds, it's just as dangerous as a knockout punch. You can be winning the whole fight for four rounds. And then the fifth round you'll be winning, and the last minute you commit a mistake and bang, you have to tap. Otherwise your limb will break, or you're going to be choked out unconscious. It's just as bad as a knockout punch.  "Jake Shields has a weapon that's even more dangerous than a knockout punch. He always finds a way to bring the fight in his game where he's the strongest, even though the odds are all against him. That's why this fight is the most dangerous fight for me.  St. Pierre's argument easily could be dismissed as simply an attempt to market a fight that many people expect will be a blowout at UFC 129 next week in Toronto. But the show already has plenty of hype around it, given the 55,000-seat sellout and the stacked nature of the card.  SHIELDS: Challenger 'hunting for submissions' against GSP  The champion correctly points out that many people refuse to give his opponent credit. During Shields' November 2009 title defense at Strikeforce's show in Hoffman Estates, Ill., boos filled the arena as he dominated Jason "Mayhem" Miller, a skilled grappler in his own right. Fans sitting behind a row of journalists screamed "Shields, I hate you" and "You're the worst fighter" even as Shields rendered Miller helpless on the ground for most of the bout.  "I strongly believe that if I would put Jake against any of the contenders that I have fought before, Jake would have won the fight," St. Pierre says. "When I say that this fight, that the bar is raised higher than it's even been before, I'm not lying about it."  Shields earned a reputation as a one-dimensional fighter because of his poor striking. But the depth of his grappling can't be overestimated, St. Pierre argues. A six-year unbeaten streak that includes victories over highly touted middleweights and top-10 welterweights bolsters the case for taking Shields more seriously than St. Pierre's previous foes.  "A lot of fans, they might not even realize all the technique and everything going behind it." Shields says. "They don't realize just how complicated some of these positions are that I've done. But I don't worry too much about that. I worry about just getting myself ready to do the perfect fight."  After years of dominance at 170 pounds, St. Pierre faces a growing chorus of demands to move up and fight middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Interest in Shields as an threat to St. Pierre shrinks in comparison to the clamor for a Silva showdown.  That just makes the job harder, St. Pierre says.  "This is foolish," he says. "This like a trap for me. ... I have the pressure of going through Jake Shields like a knife in butter, but they don't understand the danger."  Yet St. Pierre's own words suggest that he's well-prepared for anything Shields can offer. St. Pierre's favorite victories are wins over Thiago Alves and Jon Fitch, an outstanding wrestler who trains under one of the MMA's most highly regarded grappling coaches, Dave Camarillo.  "I like my fights with Alves and maybe Jon Fitch," St. Pierre says. "There's a lot of stuff that I had done in that fight that was beautiful."  St. Pierre's grappling skill in MMA has been proven repeatedly. He has taken down fighter with better wrestling pedigrees than Shields and submitted grapplers with comparable jiu-jitsu credentials. The champion occasionally trains at Renzo Gracie's Manhattan gym with grappling guru John Danaher and recently spent time in England with jiu-jitsu expert Braulio Estima and Roger Gracie, arguably the finest grappler in the world at the moment.  Even less successful grappling outings, such as a decision against Dan Hardy last year that saw St. Pierre fail to complete several submission attempts, had moments of beauty for the champion"  "I got Dan Hardy, I slipped off his back, I end up on the floor, I get a position, an ashi garami, leglock position, then I went for a sweep and a guard pass, like back-to-back, bang-bang-bang. And I recover from that position to a good position.  "People who doesn't know the sport of mixed martial arts, they don't have any grappling knowledge, they don't even acknowledge what happened. But guys that really know mixed martial arts, they can appreciate that more."  The fact that St. Pierre shares that appreciation suggests a long night for Shields.
St. Pierre irritated by dismissal of Shields - MMA Fighting Stances: Mixed martial arts intelligence from the cage and ring - USATODAY.com