George Piro recently became a celebrity in the mixed martial arts circles. Piro was selected to head up UFC’s in house PED testing system due to their fall out with USADA.
Prior to that, Piro had an interesting podcast appearance on the jiu-jitsu dummies and explained an interesting way he used BJJ during his time as an FBI agent.
UFC’s new head of PED testing is a Nogi World champion training out of American Top Team
When FBI agent George Piro was selected to interrogate Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture, he was intensely focused on strategy and skill. In Piro’s view, the high-stakes interrogation was much like a jiujitsu match – an intellectual battle requiring preparation and precision to succeed.
As Piro explained, “I really actually, uh, equate it to jujitsu. You know, it’s strategy. I’m sitting here, I’m trying to predict what move he’s going to make. How am I going to sweep him, you know, dominate.” He added, “Let him get the sweep. And so it’s a it’s a mental chess game where I like to call it intellectual combat.”
This chess match mindset guided Piro’s approach. “Yeah. It’s my mind against the other person’s. And one’s going to win. One’s going to lose. And who’s ever better, who’s ever more prepared, who’s ever stronger is going to win at the end of the day?” Piro remarked.
The competitive spirit of jiujitsu appealed to Piro in facing off against Saddam. “I found that, you know, not only did it appeal to me that, you know, I was pretty good at it,” he said. Piro enjoyed the process of strategizing, predicting and ultimately out-maneuvering his opponent.
Piro described how this played out with Saddam, stating “I’m sitting here, I’m trying to predict what move he’s going to make.” He wanted to stay one step ahead, planning “How am I going to sweep him, you know, dominate.”
In Piro’s view, it was a “mental chess game where I like to call it intellectual combat. Yeah. It’s my mind against the other person’s. And one’s going to win. One’s going to lose.” He was determined to be the winner in this high-stakes match of wits.
Approaching it as a competitive, strategic endeavor, Piro leveraged the skills he had honed in jiujitsu. “It’s strategy. I’m sitting here, I’m trying to predict what move he’s going to make. How am I going to sweep him, you know, dominate. Let him get the sweep,” he remarked.
The agent embraced the challenge, wanting to demonstrate his abilities. As Piro stated, “That’s what you know, that’s one of the reasons why I was really drawn to interrogations. And I found that, you know, not only did it appeal to me that, you know, I was pretty good at it.”
In the high-pressure setting of interrogating a dictator, Piro’s jiujitsu mindset kept him focused and strategic. Leveraging his skills at reading opponents and planning countermoves, he approached the historic interrogation like an intense intellectual combat.
