Nate Marquardt: GSP Will Destroy Jake Shields

Filed under: UFCJake Shields was the reigning Strikeforce middleweight champion and before that the reigning EliteXC welterweight champion, and so when he signed with the UFC, there was some question of which weight class he would pick.

Shields chose …

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Jake Shields was the reigning Strikeforce middleweight champion and before that the reigning EliteXC welterweight champion, and so when he signed with the UFC, there was some question of which weight class he would pick.

Shields chose welterweight, beat Martin Kampmann by split decision in his first UFC fight, and will get the next crack at UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre if St. Pierre beats Josh Koscheck next month.

But just because Shields won his first fight doesn’t necessarily mean that welterweight was the right choice. And one UFC middleweight, Nate Marquardt, believes that Shields’ style of using his grappling to control his opponents on the ground would have been much more successful if he didn’t have to cut down to 170 pounds.