It goes down as a submission victory for Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217, but the entire win was set up by some key advice from legendary boxing trainer Freddie Roach.

Roach, who was cornering his first-ever UFC fight in St-Pierre's return after a four-year absence, noticed an opening that developed in Bisping's approach through the first three rounds. The veteran coach's discovery directly led to St-Pierre delivering the winning sequence in the fourth.

"He was countering my overhand with his right hand," St-Pierre said on a conference call Wednesday. "So Freddie told me in the corner, 'When he throws his right hand, throw a cross and follow with a left hook,' and that's why I dropped him."

Bisping would hit the deck after the perfectly-timed punch from St-Pierre, a move which allowed the 36-year-old to take advantage of the Englishman.

"I know that Bisping likes to stand up (after hitting the mat), the way he stands up, he likes to go 'belly down' and stand up from there," St-Pierre said. "Instead of wasting my energy trying to hold him down like I did before, I gave him the space to go 'belly down' and when he exposed his back, I took his back and choked him."

Bisping exposing his back led to the finish for St-Pierre and the middleweight title changing hands in the process. The victory allowed the Canadian to become just the fourth man in UFC history to hold titles in two separate weight classes.

While St-Pierre admitted to being a bit rusty in his long-awaited return to the Octagon, he looked sharp in the opening round. He appeared to tire in the following two rounds, something he attributed to an intelligent strategy from Bisping's corner.

"The first round I was doing well but the second round Bisping made a great adjustment. He started running a little bit and moving more," St-Pierre admitted. "The way I trained we were thinking we would fight a Bisping that would come forward and would try to bully me, but to his credit he came with a very good strategy that gave me a lot of trouble."

It wasn't just a tough opponent that St-Pierre had to battle, as he also had to fight through a painful neck injury suffered early on in the bout.

"During the fight I got hit with an elbow behind the head in the back of the skull," the veteran said. "When I got hit I got a flash knockdown and my neck got really inflamed. I couldn't really move my neck much, especially at the end after the fight. I couldn't even tie my shoes, it was very painful."

Luckily for St-Pierre, he was able to battle through the pain and keep taking the fight to his opponent. While it's likely that the favorable result certainly shaped the way he will look back at the night, just being back in the Octagon was good enough for the living legend.

"There's no other place in the world I wanted to be," he said. "If I didn't come back, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life."