At UFC 158, Georges St-Pierre retained his welterweight title by dominating trash-talking challenger Nick Diaz. The performance was impressive in the sense that GSP completely and utterly shut down his foe, cruising to a one-sided victory, but underwhelming in the sense that he did relatively little damage to Diaz.
It’s hardly uncommon for GSP to be hit with a rash of criticism following a dominant performance, but this time it was fellow fighter, Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren, leading the charge.
Shortly after St-Pierre defended his UFC strap, Askren Tweeted:
After tonight I am 100% sure I could beat GSP@dukeroufus
The claim sparks an interesting question: could Askren indeed defeat the UFC star, or his he simply running his mouth, secure in the knowledge the fight is unlikely to happen?
We can only speculate about what motivated Askren’s address, and, at least for the foreseeable future, we can only hypothesize about how that match might play out. But hey, hypothesizing is better than nothing, right?
So here we will do just that, pitting St-Pierre and Askren in a theoretical matchup against one another. We will examine who would have the edge in the striking, wrestling and submission realms of MMA, and use the assessments to project a winner.