Judging by the angry rhetoric that is firing around MMA sites these days, one might be drawn to believe that bonfires are erupting across the world, fuelled by Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre paraphernalia. Of course that would be absurd, because grown adults shouldn’t light bonfires unless you’re burning ‘inappropriate’ books, although to be honest we did consider lighting a small waste can fire following UFC 112.
Now clearly, Silva is drawing way, way more heat for his recent ‘WTF is he thinking?’ performance against Demian Maia, then GSP drew for not finishing Dan Hardy last month. And really that makes sense; you didn’t see GSP running around screaming ‘au revoir Monsieur Hardy’ when he was working over the Brit’s arm. That said, a lot of people were also choked at the welterweight champ for not finishing Hardy, and speaking at a recent Q&A this was one of the responses GSP offered, when asked about the recent criticism he’s received (thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote):
“I think there are two kinds of fans,” St-Pierre said. “There are the fans that like only to see a brawl, and there is the type of fans that know the game and know what’s going on. I think for the fans that know what’s going on, I’m talking about the technical aspect, I think they will appreciate those kind of fights.”
It’s a good point. We weren’t hysterical with excitement during his bout with Hardy, but we weren’t bored to tears either; Silva’s performance, well, that’s a whole other bizarre story. Isn’t it also interesting that usually the fans who “only like to see a brawl” are either wearing leather ball caps or enough cologne to fumigate a 2 bedroom apartment?