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Georges St-Pierre Should Be Fighting More Frequently

After seeing Georges St-Pierre dominate round after round over the last four years, it’s easy to look down the roster and say that he’s pretty much unbeatable. Because of that, we find ourselves doing nothing but waiting for Nick Diaz, because it …

After seeing Georges St-Pierre dominate round after round over the last four years, it’s easy to look down the roster and say that he’s pretty much unbeatable.

Because of that, we find ourselves doing nothing but waiting for Nick Diaz, because it seems so obvious that nobody in the UFC could possibly beat St-Pierre.

This is the wrong attitude to take. St-Pierre should be fighting more frequently, regardless of the lack of a true No. 1 contender.

Why They Fight ‘Em

Last weekend we saw top five welterweight Thiago Alves fall to defeat against the largely unheralded Rick “The Horror” Story.

Few people saw the upset coming, but the truth is that when fighters actually fight each other, these kinds of upsets happen with a higher frequency than you could possibly expect.

For years, Fedor Emelianenko was thought to be the greatest fighter of all time, and people assumed that he’d just keep winning.

What his doubters rightly said is that although Fedor had been undefeated for a long period of time, he hadn’t been fighting elite competition frequently.

Fabricio Werdum looked like the exact kind of fighter Emelianenko should beat up until Werdum triangle choked him in just over a minute.

One fight later, Fedor loses to Antonio Silva, a guy most people thought Fedor would easily knock out with faster and more dangerous striking, but Fedor lost decisively.

What we should take from Fedor’s decline is not that Fedor was overrated, but that when you fight frequently against top-level competition, there will be danger.

The same thing is true with Georges St-Pierre. It’s not about handpicking a tough opponent. Put him in enough fights and he’s going to find himself in some tough ones.

Dana White is often quoted as saying that UFC Champions fight the best of the best three times a year.

St-Pierre has fought the best, but he certainly hasn’t fought that frequently.

St-Pierre hasn’t even fought three times in a year since 2007, and given his current trajectory, 2011 won’t be any different.

Conclusion

St-Pierre doesn’t need to fight Anderson Silva to build his legacy. He just needs to keep on knocking down whoever the UFC puts in front of him, and if he does so, the knockouts and highlight-reel performances will come.

And if he loses, at least he went down fighting the best of the best three times a year.

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MMA 101: Demian Maia Getting KO’d? Yes! Dan Hardy Getting His Arm Broken? Hmm

In the interest of full disclosure, this article is originally a reply to a comment on my previous article UFC Fight Night 24: Resolved, St-Pierre’s Nonsubmission of Hardy Mystery, March 24, 2011–but now with revisions–—where …

One big difference between striking and grappling is the fighter’s control of power over his offensive movements.

In striking you really have to hit with maximum power to make it most effective, to come closest to knocking out your opponent, to beating an eye shut.

In grappling, it’s more deliberate: if all arm bar attempts are executed properly and explosively to the full range of motion, believe me, they will all result into broken arms.

That’s why we have the protocol of the tap.

And there have been instances when the attacking fighter catches an arm, and, sensing he’s on the brink of hyper-extending it without the defensive fighter tapping out, instinctively looks up at the referee in anticipation of a stoppage.

But more often than not, a referee will stop it only if there’s a tap out or broken arm.

The attacker, denied of the expected tap out of his opponent and the resultant referee stoppage, is faced with a dilemma: either go break the arm or let it go.

And Dan Hardy would’ve been deemed equally responsible, if not more responsible, if Georges St-Pierre broke his arm for not tapping out. (After all, MMA, though bound by rules as a legitimate sport, is as close to a street fight as you can get.)

Breaking an arm is still too much for any fighter’s sensibility, with an ounce or two of mercy.

And so is the gruesome sight of it for the fans. (I’ve seen one live, and needless to say, it wasn’t a pretty sight.)

There are parallels in striking as there have been instances when a fighter’s dazed, defenseless and a punch away from dreamland, the offensive fighter voluntarily ceases his attack instead of completely knocking out the other, instinctively certain that the referee will quickly halt the action subsequently.

An example is Nate Marquardt’s split-second switch to restraint after his KO punch on Demian Maia; The Great didn’t have to land one more to totally put his opponent to sleep.

Indeed, more often than not, the referee steps in immediately—or risk a suspension of his license for exposing a “fighter who can no longer intelligently defend himself” (worse if he’s already unconscious!) against further danger and damage.

Knocking out, closing an eye (Josh Koscheck’s) from repeated punches, choking out to sleep your opponent, I’m sure, are more “palatable” to fans and fighters alike than a deliberately broken arm.

“Aaaaaargh! Look at that! Broken, dangling and limp…”

The writer is an experienced grappler and former Philippine professional MMA fighter who has won in national and Asian-level grappling competitions. In the 2010 Philippine International No Gi Open he had the privilege of facing John Tuck, who later became Abu Dhabi World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Cup 2010 gold medalist and Best Submission Award winner. John Tuck won their match in the Advanced-Pesado division and eventually bagged the gold medal in the Philippine international grappling tournament; the writer settled for bronze.

In the 2011 Philippine Brazilian Jiu-jitsu No Gi International Open, which was participated in by grapplers from all over Asia and some from the USA, the writer won one gold and one silver.

He is also the reigning Philippine Greco-Roman wrestling champion in the 84 kg weight class.

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Is Nick Diaz Really a Big Threat to Georges St-Pierre?

If you ask most fans of the sport today, they’ll tell you that Nick Diaz is the biggest threat to Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight throne.But is that truly the case?Fans will say that Nick Diaz offers a threat to St-Pierre because Diaz is dangerous bot…

If you ask most fans of the sport today, they’ll tell you that Nick Diaz is the biggest threat to Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight throne.

But is that truly the case?

Fans will say that Nick Diaz offers a threat to St-Pierre because Diaz is dangerous both on the feet with his boxing, and off his back with his vaunted Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

I disagree.

Diaz is perhaps the most interesting challenger to St-Pierre, but that’s only because St-Pierre has already seemingly faced the kind of “wrestler with knockout power” that most though was dangerous, but proved not to be in the case of Josh Koscheck.

There are two bad assumptions here.

First of all, while we haven’t exactly seen St-Pierre against a fighter quite like Diaz, we’ve most certainly seen St-Pierre dominate high level BJJ practitioners on the floor.

BJ Penn is a far more accomplished BJJ practitioner than Diaz, but he offered St-Pierre absolutely nothing once the fight hit the floor. Jason Miller was thought to be a tough matchup for St-Pierre on the floor, but GSP ran roughshod all over Miller’s guard.

On the other side of the debate is Diaz, who despite a 10-fight win streak, has faced not a single credible grappling/wrestling threat during that span. While Diaz was in the UFC, he faced lots of great grapplers (though none nearly as good as St-Pierre) and came up short on nearly every occasion.

So despite the fact that they haven’t faced each other, we know exactly how well St-Pierre does against fighters who can’t wrestle, and until Diaz proves differently, we’ve got lots of evidence of how well Diaz does when facing a guy like St-Pierre, who can take him down whenever he wants.

The second bad assumption is that St-Pierre cannot be beaten by a wrestler with knockout power.

While it’s true that Koscheck had no success against St-Pierre, Koscheck isn’t all that great of a striker to begin with. Koscheck has one punch, the looping overhand right, and when St-Pierre prepared for that punch, Koscheck had nothing left to offer on the feet.

However, when Koscheck focused on his wrestling, we did find that St-Pierre had a very difficult time in taking him down. Koscheck spent mere seconds on the floor in their rematch, and even Jon Fitch was able to stuff many of St-Pierre’s takedowns even after the beating he took in the first round.

With fighters like Jake Ellenberger and Anthony Johnson, who are both far more credible threats on the feet than Josh Koscheck, it seems to me far too early to write off the idea that a good wrestler with knockout power isn’t still the most likely type of fighter to beat St-Pierre.

Until Diaz beats a wrestler like a Josh Koscheck or a Jon Fitch, there’s no real reason to expect that he stands even the slightest chance of beating St-Pierre.

Meanwhile, it’s silly for St-Pierre to wait for Diaz. The winner of next month’s fight between Anthony Johnson and Nate Marquardt is a more credible threat than Diaz right now, and given how inactive St-Pierre has been in recent years, the UFC should book that kind of fight rather than keeping St-Pierre waiting for some imagined savior to emerge.

That’s unless they’re ready to make St-Pierre fight Anderson Silva.

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The Two Sheds Review: Main Event Changes and Lessons on Conditioning at UFC 130

It was a show of main-event changes as Quinton “Rampage” Jackson faced Matt “The Hammer” Hamill in the main event of UFC 130, shown live in the early hours of this past Sunday morning on ESPN here in Britain.No review of the pre…

No review of the preliminaries this month as ESPN had technical problems (again), so it’s on to the main show, beginning with middleweight action as Brian Stann faced Jorge Santiago.

The All-American is really starting to come into his own. After a somewhat cagey start from both men, Stann connected with a left that sent Santiago down. Stann followed him down for the ground and pound but couldn’t quite get the job done.

Stann continued his great work in the second, and a big right to the temple sent Santiago down again. A brief period of ground and pound followed before the referee stepped in to give Stann the impressive TKO win.

It was down to welterweight for the next fight as Thiago Alves faced Rick Story.

This was a very good encounter. Story put on a great display of grappling for the first two rounds, neutralizing Alves’ superior striking ability. Alves got in some good strikes, but Story was able to respond in kind.

We saw more striking from Alves in the third, as well as some exciting exchanges, with Alves rocking his man a number of times, the fight ending with both men swinging for the fences.

So with the fight going the distance it went down to the judges, with Story getting the unanimous decision.

The big boys of the heavyweight division were up next as Stefan Struve faced Travis Browne.

This battle of the big men began with both fighters connecting with a series of kicks. A clinch against the cage was followed by a brief foray to the ground before they returned to the striking game.

Seconds later and it was all over. Browne connected with a Superman punch that sent Struve crashing, the referee quickly stepping in to give Browne the great knockout win.

The heavyweight action continued as Frank Mir went up against Roy Nelson.

This battle of hometown boys proved to be a highly entertaining affair. We also got a lesson about conditioning.

Mir dominated the majority of the fight, putting on a performance that was far superior than his effort against Mirko Cro Cop.

Big Country had his moments, but as time went on Nelson’s lack of physical conditioning showed, and as he sat on his stool between the second and third rounds he had the look of a beaten and exhausted man, with Mir once again dominating with his grappling and his ground and pound.

No surprise with the judges’ decision as all three gave the fight to Mir. A great performance from the former champion, and an example of how Nelson really needs to go back to the drawing board.

The main event saw Quinton Jackson taking on Matt Hamill in the light heavyweight division.

Rampage seemed to have Hamill worked out from the start. Whenever Hamill went for a takedown Jackson was able to defend easily. It was the same whenever Hamill went for a clinch.

As for the striking, Rampage had that department covered as well, out-striking his opponent and connecting with some hard knees and shots to the body.

So with another fight going the distance it went to the judges again, with all three giving the fight to Rampage. It may not have been pretty but it was effective.

The show rounded out with filler material in the form of the lightweight encounter between Gleison Tibau and Rafaello Oliveira.

This all Brazilian affair was a nice way to end the show. Things looked pretty even in the first as both men got off some crisp strikes and showed some good work during the brief trip to the ground.

It was pretty much the same in the second until Tibau connected with a big left that sent Oliveira down. Moments later Tibau took his man’s back and clinched in a rear naked choke for the submission win.

In conclusion—they’ve done it again.

Even though this was devoid of a title fight after both Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar pulled out injured, it was still a very good show, and although a couple of the performances were a little disappointing, that didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment.

So all-in-all, UFC 130 gets the thumbs up from me.

Let’s hope ESPN doesn’t screw up any more shows though!

Don’t forget to check out my Web site at twoshedsreview.blogspot.com.

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UFC 132 Fight Card: Hooters Octagon Girl Grand Prix Round 1 Matchups & Results

The Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) and Hooters have recently announced that fans will be allowed to vote on the Hooters girl who will become the next guest Octagon Girl.
A total of 87 women will be voted on through the Hooters official Facebook …

The Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) and Hooters have recently announced that fans will be allowed to vote on the Hooters girl who will become the next guest Octagon Girl.

A total of 87 women will be voted on through the Hooters official Facebook page. The winner will become the next guest Octagon Girl and will appear at UFC 132 on July 2, 2011.

Instead of voting on all of the girls at once, we at Bleacher Report have decided to drag this competition out as long as humanly possible with tournament-style voting.

In the first round, 43 different polls will be created and the list of eligible Hooters girls will be narrowed to 44. Polls for each random matchup will be closed after 48 hours and the Hooters girl with the most votes will move onto the second round.

UFC 132 Fight Card: Hooters Octagon Girl Grand Prix (Round 1, Match-Up 4)

Ashleigh Dunn (left)

Hometown: Fayetteville, Georgia
Dunn is 24 years old and has worked at Hooters for five years. While working there, Dunn has been in the Hooters Calendar, magazine, playing cards, billboards, was “Nurse Ashleigh” i…

Ashleigh Dunn (left)

Hometown: Fayetteville, Georgia

Dunn is 24 years old and has worked at Hooters for five years. While working there, Dunn has been in the Hooters Calendar, magazine, playing cards, billboards, was “Nurse Ashleigh” in the Hooters March Madness Commercial, went overseas to Kuwait and Iraq to visit troops and placed second runner up in the 2010 Miss Hooters International Pageant.

Dunn also currently in school, studying to be a Special Education Teacher.

Jackie Cobb (right)

Hometown: Lakeland, Florida

Cobb is a 21-years-old student, who is in school to become a paramedic.

Cobb has been with Hooters since 2007. She enjoys shopping, tanning, fishing, training for competitions and watching the UFC.