Following Jake Ellenberger’s recent knockout of Jake Shields, criticism of welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has reached an all-time high.
Since regaining the welterweight title from Matt Serra in 2008, GSP has won five of his six fights by way of unanimous decision, a streak that has garnered much criticism.
Given his goal of being the best mixed martial artist ever, as discussed by MMA Nation’s Luke Thomas, GSP’s risk-averse performances have been deemed lackluster and boring.
This criticism has now intensified following Carlos Condit’s knockout, Chris Lytle’s submission of Dan Hardy and Jake Ellenberger’s knockout of Jake Shields. Condit, Lytle and Ellenberger were able to do what GSP couldn’t: Finish the fight.
Logical observers do not believe that GSP isn’t capable of finishing fights, they simply believe—with good reason, I should add—that he doesn’t try to finish fights. For that, they admonish him.
My response?
Big deal.
In a fight against the incumbent champion, the onus is on the challenger to win the belt, whereas the champ must solely defend it, not go out and win it time and again. The fight is called a title defense, after all.
If GSP’s competition isn’t capable of going out and putting him in danger, there is no reason that GSP should take undo risk and leave himself open to getting caught. He is capable of utilizing his significant skill set and unparalleled athleticism to completely dictate the pace and flow of a fight, so why shouldn’t he?
Much like you wouldn’t expect Garry Kasparov to sit in a park and challenge passersby to checkers, we shouldn’t realistically expect GSP to give the Dan Hardys and Josh Koschecks of the world a chance to get off their backs or into the pocket and put their hands on him.
Furthermore, should the UFC want to make the jump to the mainstream, MMA as a sport will have to embrace the dominant decision as a legitimate and worthwhile victory.
Do football fans yell and scream if their favorite team abandons the passing game if they are up in the fourth quarter? Must they constantly throw a Hail Mary against a porous run defense? Or constantly run against a weak pass defense?
My point is that the current state of MMA places more emphasis on entertainment than it does on sport. That’s fine by many, but to ever really become a mainstream sport, the actual sporting aspect must eventually come first.
However you cut it, Georges St-Pierre has been one of the most dominant champions, in perhaps the most challenging weight class, in all of MMA.
Call him boring, anemic or any other number of negative adjectives you might, but GSP knows how to win time and time again—and that’s enough for me.
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