Further thoughts on UFC 167

While we're on the subject of UFC 167 . . .

It's been a while since I've been impressed with Rory MacDonald. The last time I remember liking him was when he suplexed Nate Diaz through the mat three times. But since then?

I mean, I know that MMA guys are going to, as a group, have some tough guy nicknames. How many are called something-something assassin? But the moment I cooled on MacDonald was when he started calling himself “Ares”.

I find it hard to say that MMA fighters oughtta research their silly superhero nicknames, but Ares . . . ? Really?

The Greeks had a number of war gods . . . well, almost all of them, including Aphrodite, had a war aspect. But the least respected of the Olympians was, without a doubt, Ares. Generally, when he appeared at all in Greek mythology, it was to be humiliated. But if you were serious about war, you were probably going to be into Zeus and Athena, maybe Apollo or Hermes. Ares was a pig, brutal and stupid, a bully who ran away if people confronted him. One of his ceremonies was, and I kid you not, involved puppy killing. It's kind of hard to get into a dude whose actual religious ceremonies involved raising a puppy for a year and then killing it. What a asshole.

So, anyone so arrogant to want to call themselves literally a god and then so ignorant as to choose

Arex is going to rub me the wrong way. Then he started walking around in suits and thinking he deserved a title because he was all but crowned long before he got a title shot. He started to come off as a used car salesman, superficially nice but coated in a thin film of slime.

Which is to say, thank you, Ruthless Robbie Lawler. It is good to see you returned to top contention. ATT has been good to you, clearly, balancing your aggression with better control and technique. I totally want to see a title eliminator between Robbie Lawler and Matt Brown. I'm not sure I'd be on Lawler's side because I have something of a man crush on Matt Brown, but it would probably be a hell of a fight.

On the other side of things, I'm still pretty neutral about Johny Hendricks. Sometimes he comes off as really down-to-earth and humble. Other times? Not so much. He recently said that if GSP couldn't handle the pressure of being champion that he should retire and give up the belt.

Well, duh. This whole business with GSP people have been saying he can't quit fighting and keep the belt. It is interesting to note that at no point did GSP say that's what he intended. He said, instead, that he was having a hard time and was stepping back from fighting. Clearly, if he stays away too long, yes, he should be stripped of the belt. We should also bear in mind that Dominick Cruz was out two years and didn't have his belt taken from him. (FWIW, I'm against that. I more or less feel that any champion who doesn't fight for more than a year, whatever the cause, should have the belt taken.)

At the same time, everyone has been casting what's wrong with GSP in psychological terms, which is weird since GSP hasn't said exactly what is going on, except that it's personal. Medical issues are personal, for instance. Indeed, I strongly suspect that GSP's problem is primarily physical, that he's got a bad knee that is probably limiting his training and explosiveness in fights – which is why he's getting hit so much, lately, I think.

But here's the thing, Johny, GSP owes you precisely nothing. He didn't make the decision, after all. He did what he was supposed to do – he showed up for the fight and he fought a tough fight. Just because you and Dana don't like the decision doesn't mean that GSP owes anything to you, not the least little bit. He is well past the point of needing to prove anything to anyone, given that he's the UFC's biggest draw, their winningest fighter with the longest current winning streak and is without doubt the best welterweight in the organization's history. For you to say anything about GSP is fucking arrogant bullshit that makes me hope that GSP spurns you and you take another fight and lose, slide into depression and doubt and get booted from the UFC. Then you'll take a spot in the World Series of Fighting and get knocked out in three fights in a row and retire to Texas in shame and defeat. Your lack of interest in the personal well-being of one of the greatest fighters who has ever lived is, frankly, disgusting and shameful and it makes an absolute mockery of your vocal Christianity. It makes it hard to like you, moves your confidence into arrogance and makes me wish for your defeat and, indeed, humiliation. Just saying.

Why it may be time for GSP to hang up the gloves

I had an article about Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks but I threw it away.  (And, for what it's worth, I thought Hendricks won the fight - that my predictions were wrong and this post addresses that.)  This is one of those times when I wish my blog had more exposure than it does because this is something no one has said and I think it's really important:

Georges St-Pierre does not seem to have fully recovered from his knee surgery.  And, at any rate, since his return from break hasn't been fighting with the same efficiency as before.

Up until this point, I had been making excuses for GSP's relatively poor performance against Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz.  Condit had the advantage of GSP's ring rust and Condit's primary trainer being GSP's trainers down at Jackson-Winkeljohn. That's why GSP had such a relatively hard fight against Condit. Against Diaz, oh, he had a flu. Sure, GSP dominated both fights but . . . not in the style to which I have become accustomed. Yes, he won both fights but he seemed to lack the utter, total, multi-faceted dominance of his previous fights. There were moments when both Diaz and Condit seemed to be, well, winning. In the Diaz fight, there were points where GSP seemed, well, tired.

Against Hendricks, GSP lost, in my view. Indeed, over at MMADecisions.com, it was nearly unanimous that GSP lost. Regardless of whether GSP “really” won is a different issue – that GSP got his ass kicked.

If you look at my previous articles about GSP-Hendricks, it's easy to see that I didn't expect that. The more I thought about it, the worse it looked, stylistically, for Hendricks. It isn't like GSP hasn't fought wrestlers with good power punching before, right? And the most trouble Hendricks has been in has been with fighters with a style similar to GSP – Hendricks had split decisions against Koscheck and Mike Pierce. Hendricks lost to Rick Story. Discarding (albeit with reservations given Hendricks punching power) Hendricks' win over Jon Fitch, Hendricks doesn't do really great against other wrestlers. Furthermore, Hendricks had a very tough fight against Carlos Condit, an opponent that GSP rolled over with only one real bump along the way.

But Hendricks really kicked Georges' ass. Even if you think that GSP won enough rounds to win the decision, GSP lost the fight. Hendricks nearly finished him a couple of times, he may have landed fewer blows but they were much, much harder.

After I heard Joe Rogan point out that more than half of the blows that have landed against GSP have come in the last three fights – that in 21 UFC fights, 12 of them five rounders that went the distance, GSP has taken half of all shots in the last fifteen percent of his UFC career – it occurred to me why GSP has taken such a battering. The short answer is that GSP isn't moving as well as he used to move and he's exerting more effort to do it. While Hendricks is the highlight of this, it was evident in all three fights, really, because, well, GSP got hit a lot, something that doesn't normally happen. There was a time, before GSP's knee surgery, where he was basically untouchable. Successful power punches against him were happening at the rate of two or three a round.  But since his return from his knee surgery, he's literally being hit 5 times as much per minute in the cage.

He got this incredible defense from the very thing that made me a fan of him in the first place – he had this nigh superhuman ability to cover distance. From way across the cage, he could shoot in, land some shots and then disappear. It was like magic. Go and watch his fights with guys like Thiago Alves or his second fight with Josh Koscheck. His defense was as close to perfect as anyone in the octagon, better, I think, that Anderson Silva's at Silva's peak.

So, frankly, I expected the fight with Hendricks to resemble GSP's second fight with Kos, where Kos could do nothing to GSP except walk into GSP's jab and wing the occasional power shot. Instead, GSP was flat-footed with bad footwork. Sure, Hendricks is also able to cover a lot of distance, absolutely, but – as I said – it isn't like this was GSP's first rodeo. But where he was able to dance circles around Koscheck, connecting at will, making Kos at the top of his game look like he should be in another sport – the same Koscheck that lost a split with Hendricks, the same Koscheck whose fighting style is almost identical to Hendrick's – well, Hendricks shows better ability to cover distance and get inside GSP's defenses.

The other place where this is pretty clear is . . . GSP's power. Yeah, yeah, I know that GSP has been criticized for not finishing his fights, but, man, sure, he might not have finished them but his opponents looked like they'd been hit by a truck and in many, if not most of them, at some point GSP had his opponent's seriously rocked. This was true even in the eye-poke-athon that was GSP-Jake Shields – Shields had a plenty hard head but when GSP connected with a high kick, Shields was on his heels on rubber legs.

GSP has not rocked a single person since coming back from his leg surgery. Not one. Nick Diaz even commented on GSP's lack of power and Hendricks said that he was never in trouble, even though there was a time when GSP regularly rocked guys with very hard heads.

Against Hendricks, GSP landed several quite clean head kicks. I had predicted this. GSP is taller than Hendricks so landing the high kick would be easier than against almost any other opponent – he hasn't fought someone shorter than him since Thiago Alves. None of the head kicks seemed to faze Hendricks . . . and GSP kicks, or kicked, quite hard. Hard enough to send people stumbling back, hard enough to put them on their heels, knock them down, put them on rubber legs. They just bounced off of Hendricks. I could see their lack of impact, moreover. It wasn't like Hendricks got hit really hard and just ate it, the kicks lacked drive.  I couldn't help but think if Lyoto Machida had landed one of those kicks that the fight would have ended.

Power also comes from the legs, though. The explosiveness needed to really hurl yourself into a fight comes from the legs. If GSP's legs, or, perhaps, more properly, leg is messed up, it's going to effect his ability to throw himself into blows. It “feels” to me like GSP can still tag a person with speed but that he lacks the power to hurt them.

Since the ability to hurt one's opponent is a vital component of defense in combat sports, GSP's inability to hurt his opponents makes him more vulnerable. If you're already suffering from a reduced ability to move, well, you're in pretty serious trouble.  It might explain why you're now being hit five times as often.

Since GSP is so good, though, him at 80% is still championship caliber. Absolutely. But it's a different kind of champion. It's a champion who gets hit a lot, one who doesn't have a long shelf life.  Especially if he also lacks power.

Moreover, GSP has been talking for a while now about memory problems. While the Joe Rogan Experience podcast where GSP talks about his memory losses might just mean that GSP is weirder than we imagined and thinks, and has long thought, that he is being abducted by aliens, after the fight with Hendricks, GSP was talking about how he couldn't judge who won the fight because he couldn't remember it, that he had blurred vision, stuff like that.  That's bad juju.

For many fighters, the end comes fast. Chuck Liddell was on a seven fight winning streak before he just collapsed, losing five of his last six fights and winning against another nearly shot fighter in Wanderlei Silva (sorry, Wandy, but it is what it is). Four of Liddell's losses, including the last three, were by brutal KO. The same thing happened with Jens Pulver – overnight he went from being one of the best fighters in the world to being virtually everyone's punching bag. Tito Ortiz . . . aw, hell, I could go on and on about it, it's a well-known thing that for fighters the end can come fast and is usually ugly. Do we really want that to happen to GSP? To see an increasingly ragged GSP drag himself into the cage to be thrashed by an increasingly irrelevant group of wannabes and has-beens? I do not. Especially if it means gambling with his health.

Still, to me, it seems increasingly clear – GSP isn't the fighter he was before the knee surgery. It breaks my heart to have to say that, as GSP was my first real MMA man crush, but the evidence seems clear, to me. GSP's once incredible ability to cover distance, and the power that brought, is gone. He's fighting on one leg. Yeah, he's Georges fucking St-Pierre, so he's still a top caliber fighter – if he wants to be, if he's otherwise healthy. Regardless of whether GSP retires, I think we need to acknowledge that he's on the downhill side of his career and that can be agony to watch.  So if GSP wants to get while the getting is good we should look him in the eye, shake his hand and thank him for his ability as a fighter and ambassador of MMA.

Prediction on Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks in UFC 167

I'm going to make my prediction for Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks in UFC 167.  I think Hendricks is going to lose and do so pretty badly.  Bearing in mind that fighters lie, I believe Hendricks when he says he's going to try to wade through GSP's punches.  It . . . is his style.  To the extent that he has a plan B, it will be ground and pound.

People mention the tough fight that Carlos Condit put on against GSP as evidence that Hendricks, who beat Condit, has a chance.  Of course he has a chance.  The guy throws with power.  But Condit isn't Hendricks.  One of the incredible advantages that Condit had that Hendricks doesn't have is the fact that Condit's coach, Greg Jackson, was also one of GSP's coaches for years.  Condit trained with guys who helped train GSP.  It is also worth mentioning that Condit was GSP's first opponent after his knee surgery and even then, well, despite Condit's spirited effort, on the majority of cards, Condit lost every round - even the one where he almost knocked out GSP.  Most significantly, though, is that Condit's weakness - wrestling - is Hendricks' strength.

Hendricks doesn't have Greg Jackson in his corner to give specific, detailed advice about GSP.  GSP will have no ring rust.

I also don't like Hendricks' camp, Team Takedown.  He seems to be the camp king and I don't think someone who is so much a prima donna in his own camp really has what it takes to beat GSP.  There's no one at Hendricks camp that will really push him because he's the big star, he's the chief guy.  Tristar, where GSP trains, would be one of the best camps in the world regardless of GSP.  They just have too many top guys.  Rory MacDonald, John Makdessi, Ivan Menjivar, Francis Carmont, Mark Bocek and Mike Ricci are a probably incomplete list of Tristar fighters currently in the UFC, not counting GSP.  They've also got people in pretty much every major promotion, including Rick Hawn who has won a couple of tournaments in Bellator.  Not only can I find no evidence that any of Team Takedown's fighters are in the UFC, I can't find any evidence of them in Bellator.  Maybe they are, but . . . it is far to say that the level of training that Hendricks is getting at Team Takedown isn't really up there with what GSP gets with dudes like Rory MacDonald and Francis Carmont.

Additionally, well, let us look at his record.  None of this is to say that Hendricks has fought cans, he hasn't, but here's my brief analysis of his most recent fights:

He got a decision win over Condit, who has a weakness for wrestling (one that GSP also exploited).  He knocked out Martin Kampmann in shortly in the first . . . I said before the fight that Kampmann chokes and I think that was part of it.  Kampmann is also a slow starter.  Hendricks got a split decision against the fading Josh Koscheck.  He knocked out Jon Fitch, who was fading even faster - Fitch never really recovered from his shoulder separation.  He had a split decision against Mike Pierce, knocked out the unremarkable TJ Waldburger and lost to Rick Story.

Yeah, lost to Rick Story.

I know it was three years ago and Hendricks isn't the same fighter as he was, but let's face it - when Hendricks fights dudes who can wrestle, his record isn't quite as impressive.  The loss to Story, a split decision over Mike Pierce, a split decision over Koscheck.  Sure, he knocked out an injured Fitch, who was already on the down side of his career, but take out that flash knockout, and Hendricks' record against skilled wrestlers is one loss and two split decisions in the past three years.  His dominate fighting style fades with guys who can resist the takedown or threaten him with a takedown, and even then he struggled really hard with Carlos Condit.

Georges St-Pierre is widely regarded to be the best MMA wrestler in the sport.  No, that's not right.  He is considered to be the best MMA wrestler to have thus far been in the sport.  But wait, that's not all!  He's also a quite talented striker!  He's a much better striker than, say, Josh Koscheck or Mike Pierce or Rick Story - in the same range as Carlos Condit, actually.

Which is where the whole "wade through the jab" particularly falls apart.  Wading through GSP's jab generally ends up with a guy looking like he's been hit with a truck.  It was what Koscheck tried to do in the first and GSP literally broke his skull - his orbital bone, to be precise.  It's what Fitch tried to do, back when Fitch was regarded a top ten pound-per-pound fighter.

This is a bad stylistic match-up for Hendricks.  I suspect the fight will expose Hendricks' limitations as a fighter, too.  While he absolutely, no doubt in my mind deserves a title shot, he's got flaws in his game.  His striking is crude.  He has no jujitsu to speak of.  He's a good wrestler with a good power shot - like Koscheck before him.  His training camp doesn't provide Hendricks with the best possible training - it's mediocre with one guy who's really good and it's been a while since a guy in a mediocre camp won a UFC strap.

I think it's going to be a hard night for Johny.  I think the cage door is going to close and he's going to realize he's trapped in there with GSP.  I hope Hendricks brings it hard.  But I suspect that he'll start to wilt, sooner rather than later.  He hasn't really ever fought anyone with a good, stiff jab combined with a superlative takedown defense - much less someone as good at sweeps as GSP.  Like . . . a number of fighters before him, he'll find that nothing he does works.  Most fighters, when this happens, start to turtle up and just try to survive.  Even Nick Diaz did it!  There is something so . . . crushing about GSP's fighting style that even Nick Diaz fought primarily to survive, particularly in ground fighting.  I don't know if Hendricks has the gumption to persevere in the face of that kind of style.  I hope so but suspect not, particularly because of his camp.  Mediocre camps don't do well with great fighters, they're not equipped to handle them on a lot of different levels and one of those levels is that they have no leverage with which to push the fighter.

Here's how I think the fight will go.

I think the most likely scenario is that GSP strikes from the outside with Hendricks and then when Hendricks tries to jump in to land a bomb, GSP takes him down where he will try to pass the guard.  GSP will almost certainly pursue a reactive shot - he won't want to be caught coming in by a counter left, as Hendricks did to Fitch.  He'll wait for Hendricks to throw bombs - which he always does - and then, when Hendricks is off-balance, hit the power double.  This will make Hendricks timid with striking, I should note, if he doesn't walk into the cage timid because he fears GSP's takedown.

(The defense against this is a more technical style of striking, one that won't put Hendricks off-balance when he uses it.  He has not been developing such a style and trying it in the cage with the champ is a bad place to start pursuing technical striking.  Even if that has been a priority in his camp, in the cage, what generally happens is they keep it tight for a round or so and then, when they start to get a little tired, their technique falls apart and leaves them vulnerable.)

If GSP passes the guard, he'll try to submit Hendricks with either a kimura at any time or an armbar late in the round.  I think if Hendricks tries to shrimp out, there's a very good chance that GSP will take his back and pursue the rear naked choke.  If GSP can't pass, he won't worry about Hendrinks' submission game and will use G&P in the guard.  If Hendricks can get up, wash, rinse, repeat.  GSP will confuse Hendricks by mixing up strikes and takedowns in that way he does that can lead to the total collapse of a fighter's offense.

Second most likely scenario, GSP commits to an outside striking game.  He's got a lot of reach on Hendricks and Hendricks striking is very Hendo-esque.  But GSP has such good headwork and footwork, the odds of Hendricks catching GSP are slight, especially fighting against what I think is an eight inch reach disadvantage.  When GSP gets the better of Hendricks in the striking, Hendricks will pursue the takedown, like he did with Condit.  He'll find that GSP has a very substantial takedown defense - even if he gets it, it will be hard and rare and he won't hold it.  Indeed, he might discover GSP's sweeps - but if GSP commits to striking, expect him to simply get up.  If it does get to the ground with Hendricks on top, GSP has such great wrist control that it wouldn't be wise to expect ground and pound from Hendricks, not in a serious sense.

In either case, expect head kicks.  GSP is a little taller than Hendricks - an advantage he hasn't had over another fighter in quite some time - so he'll try to pass over Hendricks shoulder with high kicks and even spinning high kicks.

So, really, I see GSP winning this fight everywhere.  I think that Hendricks one chance for victory is a lucky punch, like he got with Kampmann.  There, I said it.  Kampmann, who chokes and starts slow, got clobbered by a lucky punch from Hendricks.  GSP does neither and has better footwork and head motion than Kampmann, regardless.

(This is in contradistinction to Chris Weidman.  I thought Weidman had a good chance against Anderson Silva because Weidman has everything Hendricks has and then everything Hendricks doesn't have.  Weidman has a top rank camp lead by Ray Longo and Matt Serra but also including John Danaher and Renzo Gracie - top guys.  Weidman is also a much better striker than Hendricks and has excellent jujitsu to accompany his wrestling.  Chris Weidman isn't just a left hook and takedown, he's a well-rounded fighter who, as Anderson Silva learned, can't get you one way will catch you in another.  He's the total package.  He's the kind of guy who beats top talent because he is top talent.  Johny Hendricks is not a one trick pony, he's a two trick pony . . .  but let's be honest, that's not a lot of tricks.  Avoiding the left and stuffing the takedown isn't really advanced combat planning for people at GSP's level of the sport.  Johny Hendricks is no Chris Weidman.)

I'm curious to see what happens after the fight, win or lose, for GSP.  The truth is it's Rory MacDonald's time.  If MacDonald gets a good win, he's the obvious candidate for title shot and the two have said they will not fight.  People keep saying that GSP needs to move up in weight but I never liked that plan.  If anything, GSP has been growing progressively smaller relative to other fighters over the course of his career.  He would be downright tiny to modern middleweights.

When GSP started, he was quite a bit bigger than average, but now he's merely average in size and shrinking as weight cutting gets more and more extreme in MMA.  It has been said that he could get down to lightweight, which is quite possible.  He is about 185 and a lot of lightweights, nowadays, cut down from that much . . . and there isn't anyone at lightweight that GSP wouldn't really fight, whereas welterweight has MacDonald and middleweight has Weidman.

My prediction is GSP by unanimous and clear decision.  It think that somewhere in the late first or early second, Hendricks will have tried everything he's got - which isn't a long list - and find himself shut down, offensively.  Then he'll go almost totally on defense and lose badly.

Johny Hendricks plans to ignores laws of physics, GSP's fist

Johny Hendricks seems to believe that he can teleport through Georges St-Pierre's hand.  He says that he is willing to eat a jab to land a right hand.  I'm sure Ellenberger said the exact same thing.  "Oh, I'll just take the jab and . . . wait, he has longer arms than me?"

Georges St-Pierre's reach is around 77 inches.  Johny Hendricks reach is around 69 inches.  Break that down, each one of Georges St-Pierre's arms is around four inches longer than Hendricks arms.

Johny, you won't be able to phase through GSP's punches.  When you come forward into the jabs, your forward momentum will be neutralized by GSP's forward momentum, and your arm will still be four inches away from Georges' shoulder.  To "walk through" the jabs, you'll then have to reset and press forward, but by then, Georges will be doing something else - perhaps another jab, starting the whole process over, again.

But this is physics, dude.  Don't think that because you can press past guys in training, who neither have Georges' length, who are hitting you with sparring punches and wearing boxing gloves, that you'll be able to do it against GSP.  The energies involved will be totally different.  He'll be hitting you with literally 300% more power than those other dudes.  This will stall your forward motion.  Because it's physics and never try to win against physics.  You never, ever will.

I think that Weidman did Hendricks no favors.  I understand the boost in confidence that Silva's fall brought - a stark reminder that these people are mortals, after all.  But my mental telepathy is telling me that Hendricks sees himself in Weidman - which is awful, because not only is Weidman a different fighter from Hendricks but GSP is an altogether different fighter than Anderson Silva.  Weidman would never fight a fighter like GSP with such a crude strategy - Roy Longo and Matt Serra would not let him.

I also think I understand why fighters like Hendricks and Ellenberger, who have fundamentally crude striking games, got this far.  For years, welterweight in the UFC has been under the shadow of GSP.  The guys at the top - Fitch, Koscheck, poor Alves who was ruined by Georges, even Condit - have been planning to fight GSP, even when they fought each other.  Strong wrestlers who used it to stay up and throw heavy leather is something that people haven't seen in welterweight in a long time.  Guys who did it in the recent past - Melvin Guillard and Robbie Lawler - never went anywhere, being consistently beaten (in the past, I mean, the ruthless one looked like a far more mature fighter, recently) by technical strikers and wrestlers, meaning they never got to the top of the division (save flukes like Dan Hardy).  The division was surprised by Ellenberger and Hendricks.

But not GSP.  GSP is the one guy in the whole division who never worries about what GSP is doing.  And from his loft at the top of the division, by the time anyone gets to him, he's not surprised by whatever they're doing.  GSP - like Rory MacDonald against Ellenberger - will not be surprised.

But I hope Hendricks is lying.  I hope that his coaches have analyzed GSP's fights and come up with a better actual plan than "defy the laws of physics to hit Georges".

Johny Hendricks wants to make GSP "exciting", ignores reality

I know that the odds are with Hendricks in a way that they haven't been with a fighter, against GSP, since BJ Penn.  And with Weidman's victory over Silva, well, I'm sure that's added a heady air of optimism for Johny Hendricks and Alexander Gustafsson.  It's proof that these dudes aren't invincible.

That said, Hendricks has a big, big uphill battle.  The battle comes on two fronts.  The first is that he's fighting Georges St-Pierre and the second is that he's fighting Georges St-Pierre.

The problem is that GSP isn't like Hendricks other opponents in terms of technique.  There is probably no fighter in the UFC who is as technical in so many areas as GSP.  The guy has all the core strengths of MMA down at an expert level. 

I hope that Hendricks is spewing BS when he says stuff like all he wants to do against GSP is punch him in the face.  Because that's the plan of a moron and if he does that, GSP will handle him like a child.  Confidence is great, but taking your opponent's skills likely is just arrogance.

The second problem with fighting GSP will be when the cage door closes and he's in there against GSP.  I think the real difference between GSP and Hendricks is that GSP will fight a very smart fight.  You listen to one of his strategy guys, John Danaher, and he talks about how it's reductive to just say, "Oh, this guy's jujitsu is better than this other guy's, or his striking is better".  He talks about how they train for key transitional states and develop strategies for them.

Johny Hendricks has several key transitional states, shall we say.  Well, two.  In particular, he uses the threat of a takedown to cover for his crude striking technique.  This was in particular evidence in the Hendricks-Condit fight.  Pretty much every time Condit started to get off on his striking, Hendricks took the fight to the mat.  He couldn't hold it there, but he took Condit down time after time, which nerfed Condit's superior striking and opened the door for Hendricks to land strikes of his own - which he would not have otherwise been able to do.  The other key transitional state is Hendricks ability to cover distance to connect with an overhand right.

However, that's pretty much the catalog of his skills.  When being outstruck, take a person to the mat, and use the hesitation caused by his ability to take people down to use his ability to cover distance to connect with the right.

This is not a bad strategy.  It is, furthermore, a strategy that has been employed successfully by one of GSP's former opponents, Josh Koscheck.  It a great style . . . but styles make fights and Hendricks doesn't have a great track record against people with good takedown defenses.  He got a split decision against Koscheck and Mike Pierce and he lost to Rick Story.  Sure, he KO'd Fitch - but that has the air of a fluke, it happened in 12 seconds.  But, in general, he's struggled with wrestlers.

He has not, of course, fought an MMA wrestler of GSP's ability, because GSP has the best MMA wrestling skillset with the possible exception of Jon Jones.  GSP has a great takedown defense.  He's not going to be worried about Hendricks ability to take him down.  So one of the key transitional areas for Hendricks to win is going to be nullified by GSP's fantastic takedown defense.  Which leaves Hendricks ability to cover distance with the overhand right . . . and we know what GSP's defense against that is going to be.  He's going to jab.

If Hendricks goes in there thinking he can just re-fight the same fight he used against Condit, Koscheck, Pierce, etc., on GSP, that ignores the differences in the skillset that GSP has.  If he tries to fight the same fight - which, to be honest, he probably will because he always fights the same fight - he will likely find his offense stifled by GSP's command of those key transitional states, that GSP will have answers for the questions that Hendricks poses.

Which is the real crunch time for people who fight GSP.  It's the same dilemma that fighters have faced since GSP's striking has gotten really good, since after his defeat to Serra.  A fighter is very likely going to find themselves in a situation where the regular tools they use to win fights don't work.  Nick Diaz was not able to employ his rolling style of BJJ to grab an arm or leg to transition into a submission or sweep while GSP's control of distance nullified Diaz's boxing.  Condit was only briefly able to use his striking effectively against GSP.  Shields couldn't use his submission game and only showed as well as he did because of five pretty flagrant eye pokes that the ref did not see.  Koscheck could not close to land his overhand right or take GSP down.  Alves so feared GSP's shot that he did not aggressively pursue his leg kicks.

All of these fighters - with the momentary exception of Condit when he got the head kick against Georges - shut down when they realized how little they could do to him.  They withdrew into their shells and did not aggressively pursue an offensive strategy.  And waiting for GSP to make a mistake is, generally, an exercise in futility.

Hendricks is going to have to face that when the cage door closes.  He'll come at GSP for a little bit but he'll get his takedowns stuffed, he'll get jabbed when he tries to close the distance and there's a real good chance he will get taken down.  Then he will realize that nothing he has done in the past will work.  He needs to change things up, right then, right there.

A few fighters can do this - Jones showed it in his fights against both Machida and Evans.  I think Weidman has it, too, the ability to change the context of the fight into one that favors your abilities - Weidman headbutted Silva's hand!  How about that as a way to show your contempt for Anderson Silva's striking.  Dominick Cruz can do it, too.  But it's rare and Hendricks hasn't shown any abilities in that area.  He has one fight.  He fights that one fight.  And it's a good fight and if GSP wasn't there, it might be enough to make him a champion for a long time.  But the same could have been said of Jon Fitch.  Fitch fought a good fight and he was very good at fighting that fight.  He was on an 8 fight winning streak before GSP beat him, and then he had a five fight winning streak before his career kinna fell apart.  But since it was the same fight, when he got into the cage with Georges, Georges just hit him like a train.  There's a really good chance that Hendricks is going to be hit by a train, too, because a guy who fights one fight is like a gift to GSP.

And when Hendricks realizes this, there's a really good chance he won't "make GSP exciting" (though I would characterize it more as, "Hendricks won't make Hendricks exciting") as he clams up and his offense flags due to his inability to deal with the multifacted nature of GSP's skillset.  He'll stall and GSP will have to carry the fight and it's really hard to finish a guy when all he wants to do is make it out of the round standing.

No more MMA superfights! This is a good thing.

While I'm busy recapping my various feelings, Silva's loss means that all the nonsense around "superfights" is off. 

Mostly, superfights are a stupid idea.  If Silva wanted to fight at welterweight, he would have fought at welterweight.  If GSP wanted to fight at middleweight, he would . . . assuming either fighter could either cut the weight or gain it to meaningfully participate in the other weight class.  We will no longer be subjected to the spectacle of Anderson Silva wanting to fight GSP, while dodging Jon Jones.  We will no longer see GSP make excuses about why this isn't the time to fight Anderson Silva, where he'd probably have twenty or twenty-five pound weight disadvantage . . . which is, no doubt, the same reason why Silva wasn't so hot to fight the bigger Jon Jones.

Now that lynchpin is pulled.  Silva is no longer desireable as some sort of superfight contender.  GSP won't be dodging him, Silva won't be dodging Jones.  The fighters can fight at their own weight classes and I'm, generally, comfortable with that.

(Yes, I KNOW that boxers often fight above their weight classes.  But boxing isn't like MMA in some serious ways, in this regard.  In particular, there are several promotions that have a fair bit of credibility and because boxers have so much control over their opponents, they can sorta . . . pick and choose.  And they do.  Which has it's good points and bad points, but boxers fighting above their best weight is often akin to something that can never happen in MMA - it would be like GSP going over to Bellator and kicking Alexander Shlemenko's ass.  It changes the complexion of fighting at different weight classes entirely if that sort of thing was possible.  The UFC dominated top talent in MMA, so there's no fudging around the different promotional championships to look for different kinds of championship fights.  I'm not judging the way boxing does things, but boxers do have this privilege.  So when Manny Pacquiao goes up in weight, he decides, more or less, who he's going to fight, not the guys who run the promotion.  This is a huge difference between how fights are made in boxing and how they're made in MMA.)

So, now Silva can either focus on a rematch with Weidman or take other fights, almost certainly as a middleweight, GSP can worry about dudes like Hendricks, Ellenberger, MacDonald - he's got things to do at welterweight, which has a large talent pool.  Jon Jones can beat up more people at light heavyweight, if they can find them, or go up to heavyweight without the specter of a "superfight" looming.  Let's set about that business.

Anderson Silva did not fight most of the best middleweights

As part of my series about burying Anderson Silva, I think it is important to realize that Silva didn't fight many of the best middleweights in the world, because arrogance kept them up at light heavyweight.

Fighters who SHOULD have been fighting at middleweight but can't resist the allure of being one of the big guys include: Shogun Rua, Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans.  All of these guys are about normal sized for middleweights.  Much of Silva's best competition never fought him because of, well, ego and an unwillingness to cut weight.

It's hard to emphasize enough how bad Anderson Silva's competition has been.  Even guys like Sonnen, who had the skillset to beat him, suffered this bizarre contempt for BJJ and a kind of mental weakness - watch the second fight, after Sonnen misses with the spinning backfist, he falls down and sits there.  Like you can take a break in a championship fight!  And even guys like Dan Henderson - I mean, I love you, Hendo, but I'm going to be frank, here - well, he's 6-4 in the UFC . . . and if you discount his UFC 17 wins, back in 1998, he's 4-4; that's not the profile of a great UFC fighter, Dan's best years were in Pride).  And so many of Silva's fights have been against downright bad fighters, because so many of the best middleweights weren't fighting middleweight.  Not just Shogun, Machida and Evans, but guys like Michael Bisping and Tim Boetsch were wasting their time at light heavyweight for far too long.  But when Yushin Okami or Thales Leites seems a convincing championship title fight choice, let's face it, your division sucks.

(Even Vitor Belfort, who has been looking like a beast in his last two fights, well, we should remember his pretty . . . mediocre UFC record.  If you look at his fights after his first run in the UFC (when the sport was almost nothing like what it is, now), he's 7-5 and has never had more than a two fight winning streak in the UFC.  Sure, he's a good fighter, but thinking of him as a great fighter requires a lot of slight of hand.)

Compare to, say, GSP's opponents.  Jon Fitch was 15-4-1 in the UFC.  Josh Koscheck is 15-7.  Matt Hughes is 16-6.  GSP's next opponent, Johny Hendricks, is 10-1 in the UFC.  But even when you compare the best fighters in Silva's fightography you find that . . . their records are pretty mediocre.

Compare THAT to the UFC records of Lyoto Machida (11-3 in the UFC) and Rashad Evans (13-3-1) - bearing in mind both fighters are fighting above their weight class!

Silva is a very good fighter.  But when you look at the relative level of his competition, it really stinks and, specifically, key fighters who should have been fighting at middleweight were fighting at light heavyweight.  This tendency for fighters who should fight at middleweight to fight at light heavyweight has made LHW a very interesting division, but drained MW of most of it's best talent.  In many ways, MW is where fighters who can't win at LHW go, since so many LHWs are small for the weight class.

Melendez v tThompson III and bad judging in MMA with added eye pokes

I'm not really happy with the way Melendez v Thompson III went down.  Not necessarily that Melenedez won - I expected that, indeed, I expected Melendez to dominate Thompson but that is far from what happened because I thought Thompson won that fight (so did one judge).  But because Thompson got eye poked three times

In Melendez's corner was Jake Shields, who in his fight with Georges St-Pierre, poked GSP at least five times.  After the third round, you can clearly hear GSP in the corner saying, "I can't see out of my left eye."  By the end of the fight, he couldn't see much out of his right eye, either.

So, here's the frustrating part: how often does a guy have to get poked in the eye before a ref takes a point off?  And why are people who train with Jake Shields such eye gouging bastards?  (I can't really blame Cesar Gracie, as much as I might want to.  The Diaz brothers don't do eye pokes.)

This is a serious issue, way worse than nearly any other foul in MMA, because of the fragility of eyes.  But for lesser fouls, points would be deducted.  The third time you kick a dude in the nuts?  They're taking a point.  Same for cage holding, or holding the other guy's shorts or whatever.  With any other foul, three times is almost always when they take away a point.  But in Melendez v Thompson III, Gil poked Thompson three times and the ref gave Gil a warning after the third poke.

To add insult to injury, after none of these eye pokes did the ring doctor come out and make sure, y'know, that Thompson's eyes were okay.  It's hard not to regard ring-side doctors as being somewhere below junkie whores in terms of trustworthiness.  Still, this is their fucking job.  It's an important job, because no fighter admits to being unable to fight.  (So, for instance, in the very next fight, Josh Barnett broke his hand in the first round and kept fighting for four more rounds.  GSP did not even alert anyone but his corner to the fact he was blind in one eye.  Toughness is a prized trait among fighters, they are usually unwilling to admit to any weakness.  Which is why we have these doctors, right?)

That's disgraceful.  Just disgraceful.

Afterword on UFC 143

I finally caught up on UFC 143 and I gotta say it was deeply satisfying to see Carlos Condit beat, and beat up, Nick Diaz. And while the fight was close - I scored it 49-46 though I admit the first round was close, and since two of the judges agreed with my scoring, and one gave the first to Diaz, I figure I was pretty spot on - it was definitely Condit's fight. Condit's striking was just too diverse, he was able to move and avoid Diaz's volume punching while connecting with his own strikes. At the end of the fifth round, Diaz was able to get him down and came quite close to submitting Condit with a rear naked choke - so Diaz stole that round, but even so at the very end Condit reversed it and was on top of Diaz. So, good fight, and a profound thank you to Carlos Condit for exposing the weaknesses in Diaz's game: that he fights every fight the same way and if you just plan for that, he can be beaten and, indeed, he can be caused to wilt (which definitely happened in the third and fourth rounds).

Bad news? Diaz won't get crushed by Georges St-Pierre. Instead, Condit will be crushed . . . though probably not as hard because Condit didn't call GSP a chicken. I almost wanted Diaz to win so GSP could beat him, but narrowly decided I'd rather see the Diaz hype train derailed sooner rather than later - and if Diaz lost to GSP, well, who in welterweight hasn't? But losing to Condit means that Diaz is just one of many contenders at welterweight, he isn't some dominant fighter.


The ridiculous news? Diaz is an ass. The first thing out of his mouth in the post-fight interview is how he didn't "accept" that Condit won. Diaz specifically said that he pushed forward the whole fight and landed the harder strikes. Diaz also disparaged Condit's brutal leg kicks that really slowed Diaz down in the later rounds. The first is true - Diaz did push forward. Into Condit's kicks again and again. But it a lie that Diaz landed the harder strikes. The hardest blows were definitely landed by Condit - a roundhouse kick to the face (well, he landed several, but one in particular) and a spinning forearm. And those leg kicks? Some of them were just savage. So, pathetic. Diaz lost, but he whined like a spoiled brat about it.

Then Diaz said he's going to leave MMA because . . . oh, Diaz mumbling BS. There's not enough in it for him or something. He has some fantasy that he can be a top level boxer which will earn him more money.

Which is sad. While Freddie Roach has said that Diaz is the best boxer in MMA - and who am I to disagree with Freddie Roach when it comes to judging a boxer's skill? - that's a far, far cry from saying that Diaz can be a successful professional boxer. Diaz's boxing is very good for MMA, that's undoubtedly true. But many of his fights in MMA he's won by submission. He's got top notch Brazilian jiu jitsu. You can't do that in boxing.

Not to mention the same weaknesses that Condit too advantage of - Diaz's basically lousy footwork - can also be taken advantage of in boxing. The same way Condit beat Diaz will work for any boxer. Diaz will come forward, so long as you disengage so he doesn't corner you and volume punch you into oblivion you'll do okay. And pro boxers, as a rule, have really great footwork. MMA guys? Not so much, because they've got to be canny about takedowns so they have a more square stance and don't move around as much. And Diaz has bad footwork for an MMA dude (which is why Condit landed so many leg kicks; Diaz is flat-footed and plodding).

My prediction if Diaz actually goes into boxing is that he'll get a couple of novelty fights. Oooooh, it's an MMA champion in a boxing ring! See the dog talk! Well, if they're low tier fighters, he'll win. If they're middle-tier fighters, he will lose. Diaz will never be a top level boxer getting the big paychecks he imagines he'll win - and in short order, he'll be getting smaller paychecks than he would be getting in MMA where he is a legitimate title contender. He'll never be that in boxing.

So, not only pathetic that he's leaving MMA with his tail between his legs because he got whipped by Condit (c'mon, man, learn to lose, it's part of all sports!), but it's stupid. And sad.

(It also makes me wonder what his manager, Cesar Gracie, is doing with his money. Diaz lives a very modest lifestyle. Last year, he earned at least $1.1 million in just paychecks for his fights. With promotions and such, it was probably at least twice as much. So, you've got this guy who lives with two other dudes in an apartment in Stockton - he doesn't even live there alone, he shares a place - he drives a crappy car, while I'm sure he spend a fair bit on weed it's not that expensive given his wealth. But he's always whining about how he doesn't have money. Diaz would hardly be the first fighter to be taken advantage of by his manager. But if that's the case, even if he could be a top flight boxer, he'll still be ripped off by Cesar Gracie.)

Next, someone will have to come in and stop the Nate Diaz hype train. Sure, he had a goon win over Cowboy Cerrone, but that's because Cerrone came out and fought an angry and stupid fight. I'm sure a disciplined Cerrone would have won that fight . . . and I think that everyone, from now on, will train not to fall for the Diaz brothers' cage tricks like the "Stockton slap" and the trash talk. Not to mention that from now on, Nate is deep in the shark pool of lightweight. It doesn't get easier from here, so, go Dan Miller, who is a legit contender.

Other noteworthy things? Hell, yeah, Dustin Poirier's mounted triangle armbar was wicked. And Stephen Thompson's karate KO was pretty nifty, too - and the announcing was great. It was Thompson's first UFC fight, and it didn't look like he was hitting with a lot of power, and Joe Rogan was walking about how Thompson was definitely hitting Stittgen and styming Stittgen's offense but it didn't look like he'd hurt Stittgen and as Joe was saying that Thompson laid out Stittgen. Hell, yeah, karate! So, that was cool.

I also think welterweight has turned over. Josh Koscheck won his fight by a razor's margin split decision and I agreed with the minority judge. But with Jon Fitch having been KO'd in his last fight, with Josh Koscheck's uninspired victory over a very modest fighter, Jake Shield's getting clobbered by Ellenburger and Thiago Alves having already self-destructed, I think that there's going to be a whole new cast at the top of welterweight - Carlos Condit, Jake Ellenburger, Diego Sanchez and before too long Rory MacDonald. I also think that Thiago Alves can go back up to the top if he overcomes his fear of wrestling. But a lot of the old guard the UFC wants to put aside because and they're largely at the end of their careers, anyway.

I was sad Ed Herman won because he's a jerk, but he's finally become the fighter everyone thought he was when he was on The Ultimate Fighter. He might be a force to deal since middleweight is going to turn over very soon - Anderson Silva only has a couple more fights in him, and he's got a really tough test against Chael Sonnen, who came within a hair's breadth of beating Silva last time they fought. And regardless if Silva wins (and I hope he does), he won't be fighting too much longer. He's thirty-six and he's got injuries. He's got maybe two more fights in him.

I think Renan Barão is going to be fighting Dominick Cruz very soon. I think it will be a good fight, judging how Barão fought against Scotty Jorgensen (who Cruz also fought, so there is some grounds for comparison). And I like Scotty Jorgensen, but I don't think he's going to be a top guy at 145 for much longer - he doesn't seem to be developing. Oh, well.

Georges St-Pierre, Fighting Safe and It Takes Two

Recently, Chris Lytle submitted Dan Hardy. Even more recently, Jake Ellenburger knocked out Jake Shields. In both instances, part of the story was that Georges St-Pierre did neither. The narrative rules thus, “Because inferior fighters like Chris Lytle and Jake Ellenburger finished Dan Hardy and Jake Shields, this is proof that GSP fights ‘safe’.”

It’s a very interesting narrative because I don’t think it has much basis in fact.

The first time I noticed it was after Matt Serra knocked out GSP. The rumors abounded that GSP had no heart to be punched, and his subsequent fights didn’t dispel this notion. He dominated Josh Koscheck and submitted Matt Hughes so completely that one might think it was true GSP didn't want to be punched - so, great performances by GSP, his incredible defense, were transformed into strikes against him. I found this very bizarre. Like getting punched was, somehow, a virtue in MMA.

Serra vs. GSP II was pretty interesting in the context of the narrative around GSP. When GSP immediately took Serra down, Eddie Bravo (filling in for Joe Rogan) talked about how that was a conservative strategy. In Eddie Bravo’s world, ground fighting with a high level Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt trained by Renzo Gracie is “conservative” instead of, oh, a demonstration of GSP’s utter confidence in his ability to dominate Serra on the ground. Which GSP then proceeds to do.

It gets worse in the second around. Even while GSP is destroying Serra’s internal organs in alphabetical order with some of the most brutal knee strikes seen in MMA, Eddie Bravo is talking about how conservative GSP is fighting. Even as GSP crushed Matt Serra, this was the narrative, even though the evidence against that narrative was literally happening in front of Bravo.

Since then, that narrative has taken on a life of it’s own because GSP hasn’t finished four opponents, though he has often dominated them. The idea that he's fighting safe has simply become accepted by large parts of the MMA community, even though the evidence against it right there. But, like Eddie Bravo, they refuse to see it.

When you look at GSP's fights, the truth is you find an extremely active fighter with an arsenal of diverse MMA techniques second to none. He throws many standing strikes, he has great takedowns and ground and pound, he's good at submissions. Indeed, one of the characteristic elements of GSP's style is he often goes after a fighter where he's strong - so he'll stand up with fighters like Thiago Alves, but take fighters like Jon Fitch to the ground.

Still, I think I do know why GSP doesn't finish more opponents. It's not because he doesn't fight - it's because they don't fight. GSP's opponents since Jon Fitch have not meaningfully tried to mount an offense against GSP. Even if they're aggressive against other opponents, against GSP they become timid, if not outright cowardly.

Really, if you look at GSP’s fights, he throws a lot of risky techniques and often meets fighters were they’re strongest in order to overwhelm them. This is not a particularly conservative strategy, it is not being risk adverse. You can’t throw a spinning high kick in a risk adverse way! But it’s one of GSP’s favorite techniques.

Well, my friends, it takes two to tango. It was almost a foregone conclusion that GSP vs. Fitch would go the distance. Fitch is a grinder with a really hard head and great submission defense. His entire fighting style is to neutralize his opponent’s offense . . . which he managed to do just barely enough to stop getting knocked out or submitted.

But things get really interesting when you look at GSP vs. BJ Penn II. Many people thought that Penn beat GSP in their first fight, and even GSP fans would generally concede that Penn got the better of GSP in striking. A lot of people thought that Penn was a bad stylistic match-up for GSP - Penn's got a great takedown defense and really fast hands with knockout power. Penn is also a notoriously aggressive fighter.

And let's look at Penn's offense. In four rounds, BJ Penn threw 37 significant strikes. Oh, sure, you might say, but most of the fight took place with Penn on the ground and GSP grinding him out. Yet, of standing strikes, GSP threw 47 strikes (landing 30) and Penn . . . threw 27 strikes (landing a mere 8). GSP launched almost twice as many attacks, standing, as BJ Penn.

Penn was supposed to want the fight standing, but even standing, GSP just tore him apart. And GSP was the clear aggressor. Penn was the person avoiding GSP, not GSP avoiding Penn. That's not even counting that all the takedowns (4 total) and seven of the eight takedown attempts were by GSP.

So, really, who fought the conservative fight there? The guy doing the punching, kicking and takedowns, or the guy who didn't do those things? BJ Penn is supposed to be one of those iron willed fighters who always goes forward - but that's just not true in his fight against GSP. He fought timidly, refusing to engage GSP both on the feet and on the ground.

In GSP’s fight with Thiago Alves, Alves was timid. I mean, I love Alves. He’s got shotgun shells for shins. He turns over a low kick like no one else. And if he’d been willing to use that against GSP. . . but, no, during the stand-up, Alves attacked GSP often, but timidly. Alves was so frightened of GSP’s various abilities that he landed only 19% of his blows - about half his average. Like with Penn, Alves was supposed to have the advantage in striking.

It was a pretty sad spectacle, watching the normally aggressive Alves unwilling to commit to attacks. He threw a fair number of blows, more than GSP, but GSP hit much, much more - almost three times as much - because one of them was committing to the attack. It wasn't Alves.

Worthy of note, Alves has some of the best leg kicks in MMA. He threw only fifteen significant leg strikes at GSP during the whole fight - even though it is one of this best attacks and was landing half of them.

(Of all the fights I'm going to talk about, this one is the hardest to say that Alves was timid. I've watched many Alves fights, most of them several times, and Alves was timid against GSP, and often against wrestlers. You can see this same timidity in the first two rounds of Alves' fight with Rick Story. Rather than throwing aggressive techniques, Alves was active on paper but when you watch the fight it's clear he's holding back. How much he was holding back became clearer in the third round when Alves tore Story apart. Alves can get timid around wrestlers, generally, failing to commit to attacks because he doesn't want to be taken down. This is a serious flaw in his fighting style and lost him title contention for the near future.)

Hardy wasn’t particularly timid, but let’s face it, we all know it, he had no right being in the same cage with GSP. People wonder why GSP didn’t finish him, they say his armbar technique was sloppy . . . but I’ll tell you what I think. GSP pitied Dan Hardy. Hardy was the opposite of a threat to GSP, so rather than cripple the man, GSP went light.

But still, Hardy was in a cage fight against GSP. To win, you’ve got to attack. How often did Hardy attack? In 25 minutes, Hardy attempted 27 significant strikes - that’s slightly more than one a minute - and connected with 4. He tried no takedowns, no submission attempts. Hardy’s entire offensive output was one punch a minute. At no point did the Outlaw try to seriously fight GSP.

(And against Chris Lytle, Hardy was not the same fighter. Against GSP, he was the spunky underdog that had, through highlight reel comebacks, had earned a title shot against GSP. Against Lytle, Hardy was 0-3, not having won since before GSP. Saying Hardy was beaten before he ever got into the cage is, I think, fair.)

Next up was Josh Koscheck. GSP “conservatively” punched Koscheck, punishing Kos with 110 significant blows, 70 to the head. But a clear part of that fight was Koscheck’s lack of meaningful offense. While GSP launched his 136 significant strikes, Koscheck only attempted 30 and landed only 16 - less than one a minute. Remember, almost all of this fight was standing. Unlike the Hardy fight, you can't actually say that GSP used his wrestling to neutralize Koscheck's offense. Koscheck had as many attempts to strike at GSP as GSP had to strike at Koscheck. It's just Koscheck didn't take them.

In the fourth and fifth rounds, Koscheck only attempted one significant strike. In ten minutes, he tried to punch GSP once. And takedowns? Koscheck tried only 4 times, all of them in the first round. Which means in rounds four and five, Koscheck’s entirely offensive activity consisted of one punch. But the whole fight was Koscheck tentatively approaching GSP, getting hit and backing off - pretty much the whole damn fight.

After that it was Jake Shields and Shields wasn’t timid. He just cheated. Gouging your opponent is a good way to win, but a serious part of Shield’s strategy was to keep GSP off of him. He fought with his hand out, his fingers out towards GSP’s eyes, making it hard for GSP to approach without getting gouged. And GSP did get gouged. Five times. This fight was a travesty, let’s face it. It should have been stopped and Shields disqualified for his repeated gouges and then kicked out of the UFC for willfully endangering another fight.

To sum up, it takes two to fight. GSP is an aggressive fighter. He throws a lot of strikes, he does a lot of takedowns - but what if the other fighter only wants to survive the fight? What if you’re Thiago Alves and you refuse to use your strongest weapon? Or you’re Dan Hardy or Josh Koscheck or BJ Penn and you’re barely in the fight at all? Or you’re Jake Shields who just cheats.

Oh, and what about GSP’s “heart”. Sure, he doesn’t get hit very often, because no one seriously attacks him. When one fighter refuses to attack another, it’s very hard for the aggressive fighter to knock his opponent out. A perfect example of this are Anderson Silva's fights against Demian Maia and Thales Leites. Silva couldn’t put either away - and both Leites and Demian Maia had a greater offensive output than Dan Hardy and Josh Koscheck. Or Nate Quarry vs. Kalib Starnes. There was no possible way that Quarry could have finished Starnes . . . but Starnes fought harder than Hardy and Koscheck, given the fight was three rounds.

GSP doesn’t finish guys because they do not, in general, fight him. They either fight him timidly, failing to commit to their attacks, which is how Alves fought. Or they don’t mount any serious offense at all, such as with Penn, Koscheck and Hardy. Or they fight dirty, like Shields did.

GSP has broken the will of the entire welterweight division. Since GSP brutally punished Jon Fitch, his opponents have gone into the cage trying to survive, that’s all.

Unlike a grinder, who takes an opponent down and uses top control wrestling to shut down their foe’s offense, GSP is quite willing to stand up and trade blows. He did it with Alves, he did it with Koscheck and Shields. But he’s usually the only guy seriously throwing. He’s trying to get into a fight, and he gets timidity, backpedalling and lack of any serious offense at all - or cheating.

So, a shadow of Dan Hardy got submitted by Chris Lytle. Yes. But Hardy fought a totally different fight against Lytle. To wit, Hardy fought it. Against GSP, Hardy threw a meager 27 significant strikes. Against Lytle, Hardy threw 238 significant strikes. Naturally, with Hardy winging blows with abandon, with no defense, it shouldn’t be surprising that Lytle was able to submit him. Hardy fought a stupid fight and he lost.

Likewise with Shields and Ellenburger. I’m guessing fighters and referees are now watching for the eye pokes. But instead of trying to keeping Ellenburger away, Shields instead charged in for takedowns with no attempt at defense. He fought stupid and got knocked out. How does that reflect on GSP? Shields fought a totally different fight - a cleaner, dumber fight - and got caught. (Not to mention that Shields’ dad died three weeks before. It is hard for me to count that loss too much against Shields, and I think the dude should have been kicked out of the UFC when the amount of cheating he performed against GSP became evident.)

Fighters fight timidly against GSP, so he can’t finish them. Just like Anderson Silva could not finish Thales Leites or Demian Maia and Nate Quarry could not finish Kalib Starnes; it’s hard to fight a guy running away from you. You watch Carlos Condit, next. Watch how he comes out. What he’s learning from Winklejohn, right now, is that there is nothing he does that GSP doesn’t do better. Condit will have to make a decision. He will have to decide either to fight GSP like he has fought everyone else, in which case we’ll see Condit go out on his shield, or he will spend the whole fight looking for a weak spot that simply is not there . . . the fight will go long, and Condit will probably see all five rounds. (I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope Condit tries to win, I seriously do, rather than meekly pressing the attack and hoping for GSP to make a mistake. But I believe that what we'll factually see is a timid, meek Condit.)

If you look at the numbers and kinds of attacks GSP uses, he is an extremely active fighter against unusually timid opponents. He does not grind. He throws a lot of leather, he does takedowns, he tries submissions. But when the other guy is focusing solely on surviving the fight, well, these are the best fighters in the world. They’re probably going to make it.

However, the narrative is that GSP is a conservative fighter. He’s a “safe” fighter. Perhaps so. I don’t think this is a slur. The guy is almost impossible to hit or take down and that’s a testament to his incredible skill. But if the other fighters don’t launch a sustained offense, how on earth can GSP finish them? It takes two to fight.

It also means that when someone else finishes a fighter GSP did not finish, it means nothing. The narrative that GSP is somehow a timid fighter is bizarre and absurd. It’s his opponents who are timid, when fighting him.

PS with Anderson Silva. And, in comparison, Anderson Silva is lucky in his opponents. Yushin Okami, after getting rocked twice by Anderson Silva, pressed ahead, anyway, winging clumsy blows at Silva. As one BEer said, the secret hero of UFC Rio was Okami. He decided to go out on his shield. Vitor Belfort stuck right in the pocket, right in front of Anderson Silva, and paid the price for his aggression.

You can even see it happen. In Silva’s fight with Forrest Griffin, Silva goaded Griffin into the attacks that allowed the counterpunch that drove Forrest’s will to fight right out of his body, never to return. Silva did the same thing against Hendo - instead of sticking to the gameplan, Dan Henderson decided to get into a punching match with Silva and paid the price.

Silva is an incredible fighter, but much of his legend must be attributed to the people he fights. As a rule, they are there to fight. The come forward, even when it’s foolish or even hopeless to do so.

But when faced with fighters who fight like the fighters GSP fights - people like Maia and Leites, except GSP's opponents are more generally skilled than Maia or Leites - Silva fares no better than GSP. Indeed, he fares worse because Silva is a more defensive fighter than GSP and, unlike many of his opponents, Silva can not be swayed from his game plan. Even if it makes him look ridiculous.

It really takes two to fight. Silva is fortunate that his weight class is filled with so many brawlers and tough guys. That Silva can get matched up against Rich Franklins and Forrest Griffins and and Dan Hendersons instead of Josh Koschecks, Dan Hardys and Thiago Alveses.

Which is why after GSP takes apart Condit, I hope he goes up in weight. I think Chris Leben would be a good first fight for GSP. It would draw an instant comparison with Anderson Silva, who’s first UFC fight was with Leben, it would be exciting because Leben is definitely a “go out on your shield” type of fighter, and we would get to see how GSP handles a brawler. My guess would be “easily”. I believe that GSP at middleweight would produce more interesting fights . . . until GSP crushed the division’s will to fight, too.

Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz -- FIGHT!

It seems increasingly likely that Georges St-Pierre is going to fight Nick Diaz, probably in Montreal, probably in December. While part of me would like GSP to go up to middleweight (not just for Anderson Silva, but because he needs new people to fight, generally), I like the idea of GSP-Diaz, too, because fuck Nick Diaz. He's a jerk. I generally root for Californians, and Diaz is Cali to the bone, but he's such a jerk I can't do that.

It is also looking like there's a grudge happening between GSP's gym, Tri-Star in Montreal, and the Cesar Gracie camp in Stockton, CA. In UFC 129, Tri-Star's Rory MacDonald defeated Cesar Gracie's Nate Diaz (younger brother to Nick). The same night, a mostly blind GSP defeated cheating bastard Jake Shields. (C'mon, Jake? Five eye pokes in one fight? You should be fuckin' fired. But, hey, I guess your buddy Chuck Liddell covered for you.) And it seems probable that GSP will be fighting Diaz, next. I guess the UFC has decided that Tri-Star needs to clear out Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

I don't think Nick has much of a chance. (Neither do the bookmakers. The odds are about 7 to 2 in GSP's favor, right now.) When Diaz fights guys with good takedowns, his high volume punching skills degrade because his footwork changes. He has to try to defend takedowns, so he can't put his feet in the right way to keep up his volume punching. Additionally, GSP is faster and has a longer reach, so Diaz's normal tactic of pitter-patting a fighter on the way in won't work with GSP. GSP also has great disengages -- it's like teleportation, a guy tries to punch him and he'll be across the ring, it's beautiful to watch and GSP is one of the most elusive fighters in MMA, right now. (I believe he is the most elusive fighter actually fighting, with the possible exception of Lyoto Machida.) GSP will snap out with that jab like an iron bar that destroyed Koscheck's face, or lunging overhand rights, to set up spinning body kicks while looking for the roundhouse kick to the head. If Diaz adjusts his footwork for a lot of punches and GSP doesn't want to engage and disengage (which he might, he has liked to defeat people where they're strong in the past), he'll just take Diaz down.

Indeed, there is probably no condition under which Diaz won't be taken down by GSP if GSP wants to take Diaz down. And there is no condition under which Diaz will be able to take GSP down. No one has been able to dominate GSP on the ground. Not Matt Hughes, not Josh Koscheck, not Jon Fitch. If GSP can dominate Hughes, Kos and Fitch on the ground, I don't think anyone doubts that Diaz will be easy. GSP hasn't been in any threat of submission for half a decade against better submission artists than Diaz.

GSP will also have a massive advantage in physical strength. He's probably the strongest welterweight in the world (with the possible exception of Thiago Alves). He's stronger than all middleweights with the exception, perhaps, of Yushin Okami and Chael Sonnen.

(In terms of endurance, they're probably equal. I gotta give Diaz's conditioning credit. If it goes to the later rounds, it will be as hard fought in the fifth as the first. Both men are machines.)

So, how can Diaz win? Diaz needs to work on engaging, he needs to press the fight, cut off GSP and land precision shots. He also can't let it go to the ground, he needs to work on his takedown defense.

Will it be enough? Probably not. GSP has really good evasions, he's got speed, strength and reach. GSP was equal to Thiago Alves on his feet when GSP had a pulled groin muscle. Still, that's probably Nick's best shot. He is a high skilled, well-rounded fighter and if he can keep it standing and cut off GSP, he has a chance.

For me, the good thing is . . . this will be the first fighter in a long time that won't be frightened of GSP. Diaz won't work on his footwork to cut off GSP. He'll press forward, basically offering his head to GSP, like he does to everyone else. And when GSP bangs him up, Diaz will keep offering it. I think that will make the fight exciting, rather than the line of timid fighters GSP has had to deal with since obliterating BJ Penn.

Anderson Silva's fighters vs. Georges St-Pierre's fighters

There's bitter MMA acrimony over whether Georges St-Pierre or Anderson Silva is the best pound for pound fighter in the world. The essence of the argument is that Anderson Silva is really good at ending fights.

Now, having seen every fight in the UFC that both men have fought, I'm actually a little mystified that GSP hasn't finished more of his guys. You look at the faces of Koscheck or Fitch and . . . they've definitely been in a fight. Their faces are mashed up. You just watch the fights and it's clear that GSP is hitting his foes with just brutal blows. Greg Jackson said that GSP was hitting Koscheck so hard with the jab that Koscheck was being knocked out of range of GSP's cross. And the blows were precise, a large number of them seeming to fall square on the temple or jaw. And the beating GSP gave to Fitch was worse. How did he not finish those fights?

Some of it is just that . . . the guys GSP fights are just less likely to be finished than the guys Silva has fought. Here's how it breaks down. I am counting only fights that they've done as champions in the UFC. Silva has done three fights that weren't championship fights during his reign as UFC middleweight champion, one of them catchweight because his opponent didn't make weight at middleweight and two fights as a light heavyweight. I'm counting them though even if you eliminate them it doesn't much change the basic truth, here.

The guys that Silva fought as while UFC champion or in a championship fight get submitted on average of 2.5 knockouts each and 2.7 submissions, each. The guys that GSP has fought while UFC champion or in a championship fight have an average of 1.7 submissions and KOs each. GSP's opponents are 32% less likely to be knocked our or submitted.

GSP's opponents also have a better win-loss ratio. Silva's fighters average 2.9 wins for every loss. GSP's? 3.4 wins for every loss. So, not only do they get submitted less often when they do lose, they just win more often -- about 15% more.

I've maintained for some time that the welterweights are, in generally, just better than the middleweights and it is apparently quite objectively true. The guys GSP opponents win more often and they get finished less often.

During his championship tenure, Silva has finished a fairly staggering 10 of his 12 fights. GSP a somewhat less impressive 4 out of 8. But I think if you factor the little issue that GSP's opponents are better fighters less liable to be caught in a KO or submission, that statistical discrepancy disappears entirely.

But I'm clearly a GSP fanboy, hehe. Though I love Anderson Silva, too. It's so hard to choose! But I think GSP is currently a better fighter. He has dominated his fights in a way that Silva's last three title defenses were not dominated. He was unwilling to press to engage Thales Leites, he refused to engage Demian Maia in the last two rounds, and he was pounded by Chael Sonnen through four and a half rounds. That is in stark contrast to GSP's destruction of Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves and Dan Hardy.

Why Koscheck lost and why George St- Pierre didn't knock Koscheck out

Why Koscheck lost and why George St- Pierre didn't knock Koscheck out

Josk Koscheck lost, in part, because of the American Kickboxing Academy. AKA is really good at taking wrestlers -- Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, Cain Velasquez -- and turning them into really good MMA fighters by teaching them boxing and kickboxing. But that's it. So in the fight against GSP, Koscheck was the same fighter who fought Daley, who fought Alves, who fought Thiago. Everyone knew what Koscheck would do -- he would try to keep off the ground and try to set up the overhand right hook. That's exactly what he did, largey succeeding with the first and utterly failing with the second. AKA has taught everything it has to teach to Koscheck, Fitch and probably Velasquez at this point. But because they're a "family", Koscheck, Fitch, Velasquez and the rest will probably stay there, stagnating. Never trust a family you have to pay.

I'm not precisely attacking AKA. They've obviously got a lot of great fighters down there. They're really good at turning wrestlers into MMA fighters. But they all fight alike, really. Fitch and Koscheck are more or less indistinguishable and Velasquez is built on that same mold. Koscheck has definitely reached the point where he's not learning anything new. Everyone know what he was going to do against GSP and that's what he did. On the flip side of things, no one knew what GSP was going to do. It was a mystery. Unsurprisingly, since GSP was able to plan for exactly what Koscheck did and Koscheck wasn't able to plan for what GSP was going to do, GSP won.

Koscheck, and almost certainly Fitch and Velasquez, too, need to train somewhere else. It would probably be a fine idea to keep AKA as their main camp, but they're all getting to be rather predictable as fighters. Go down to New Mexico and train with Greg Jackson, go down to the Black House and train with Silva and Noguiera. (And that touches on the whole "team" thing, too. Koscheck and Fitch have already said they won't fight each other, even if the belt was on the line. Switching camp to camp would make sense insofar that it would allow them to diversify their experiences, but if they're going to take the attitude that they're not going to fight their teammates it would further limit their options. Which I find a bit insane. It is also an interesting way to see how martial arts styles develop but that's for another article.)

Which leaves us with why Georges St-Pierre didn't knock Koscheck out. While it's true that GSP has a fantastic defense, and that was certainly true in his fight against Koscheck, who barely touched GSP, GSP isn't precisely a defensive fighter. He's happy to bring the fight to the other guy. But it's been a while since he finished a fight. Because he has a level of activity that you never see with Lyoto Machida, and his defense is as good as Machida's, well, probably better, it's hard to call GSP's fights boring . . . except insofar that a fighter as skilled as GSP basically has no competition. You look at the guys he's fought, but was unable to finish, and you can tell that GSP was landing serious blows against Koscheck. (Indeed, and I'll mention it as an aside, part of the reason GSP might not have knocked out Koscheck is because he made a squishy spot. Y'know. In Koscheck's skull.)

But, he hasn't finished a fight in a while. Why can't he knock guys like Fitch, Koscheck and Alves out? Sure, some of it is definitely because these guys are really amazing fighters, but there's got to be more to it than that, right?

The short answer is knees. GSP has brutal knees and one of his top trainers is one of the best muay Thai guys in the world but GSP almost never goes for standing knee strikes. His stand-up game is almost entirely Kyukushin karate. He's got some kicks, he's got some directs, all very linear and from the outside. What he doesn't have are the tools capable of really knocking someone out in one blow. I suspect the easiest way to make GSP a knockout artist is to train him in knees. He's already great at controlling the clinch. Give him some knees, give him some elbows. GSP, listen to me, use that nasty muay Thai stuff.

Since GSP trains in Brazil, and I think this would definitely be going out his comfort zone, instead of training in Brazilian jiu jitsu, stop instead at Chute Boxe Academy. Chute Boxe has produced some of the greatest knock out artists in MMA -- Shogun Rua, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, and they do it with their knees. I know these guys have a level of violence you GSP isn't entirely comfortable with; if there's a brutal mean thug in MMA from Brazil, the odds are he's a Chute Boxe guy. But, for crying out loud, they can finish fights like no one else. And even if he doesn't go to Chute Boxe, he needs to go somewhere to get that training.

Or, at least, learn hooks and uppercuts. I think that knees would be better for GSP. He's already got the power in them and he's got a great clinch, fantastic balance and explosive power. But if not knees, though, then uppercuts and hooks. He also had a fair bit of precision and if he learned to drive uppercuts into guys jaws, he'd knock them out, not just down. For while it's true that GSP has no weaknesses, he has not yet acquired all strengths. I believe he's aware of this and he's been very disappointed in himself that he hasn't been able to finish his last several opponents, and one of the key things missing from his toolbox is one shot knockout power.

GSP is in a nearly unique position of having latitude to really experiment in the ring. He hasn't lost a round in 35 rounds. So, against Jake Shields, he could either throw caution to the wind and try to KO Shields in the first and second, confident that if he hadn't he could revert to his old style and beat him that way . . . or do the first three rounds his old style and use four and five to throw knees and inside uppercuts from the clinch. He's got a latitude with experimentation utterly lacking in lesser fighters. He should use it, I think.

(I suppose it's also possible that even the greatly skilled GSP is simply at the end of his formidable talent -- that this is basically the best GSP that we'll ever see. Y'know, merely the best in the world. But I think he can go further. I think with a little work he could make his offense at least as great as his defense.)

Knees, Georges, listen to me, knees.

And STILL the UFC welterweight champion of the world!

Georges St-Pierre fucked up Josh Koscheck. GSP did not manage to do a dominating ground and pound and brutally punish Koscheck. GSP punished Koscheck on his feet for daring to set foot in Canada. Koscheck was able to top most of GSP's takedowns, until the fifth when GSP could toss him down at will, and proved slippery to handle on the ground. On the other hand, GSP easily defended against Koscheck's takedowns. Which meant that the fight was a stand-up battle. GSP brought the pain. Koscheck's face looked Rocky Balboa after Apollo Creed was done with him.

As I said before, Koscheck's punching consists of a good set-up left followed by an overhand right hook. I knew this and so did everyone else in the world, including GSP. So every time Koscheck came in, GSP hit with a jab like an iron bar. He through some crosses and hooks that landed, too, but the story was GSP's explosive right jab and his perfect defense. Koscheck barely touched GSP. Fight Metric's data is a tally of GSP's dominance. GSP landed 136 strikes and 110 of them were significant while Koscheck landed only 30 with 15 of them significant.

The other side of the story is that GSP couldn't finish Koscheck off. Koscheck has a hard head and the welterweight division in the UFC has some of the best fighters in the world. I would have liked to see Koscheck get knocked out -- something only managed once, so far, by the hard hitting Paulo Thiago, which was a little surprising since he managed to tough out the harder hitting Thaigo Alves. Without a doubt, Koscheck has a good chin and a lot of heart.

That said, St-Pierre punished Koscheck. His jab was like a gunshot to Koscheck's eye. By the end of the fight, the eye was swollen totally shut and he was flinching away from his corner guys trying to tend to it. After the fight, it was found GSP had broken Koscheck's orbital bone and there was an air pocket behind the eye. He was driven to Boston for surgery; he couldn't fly because the rapid pressure changes might further injure the eye. So . . . I guess I definitely got the punishment I wanted. GSP broke Koscheck's skull.

Still, he didn't "finish" Koscheck. But part of why GSP is such a great champion is because he has such great people to fight against. The welterweight division -- which includes most of the fighters who are of "average" height -- is the toughest in the world, I think. So GSP's lack of finishing against welterweights must be contextualized in that light; Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo just don't have the brutal competition that GSP faces at welterweight (both middleweight were Silva fights and featherweight where Aldo fights have only 1 "best pound-per-pound fighter each in the top ten; welterweight has three and those three are generally ranked higher than lightweight's three). Middleweight's #1 contender is Chael Sonnen -- a solid fighter but no one is going to confuse his 25-11-1 record with "amongst the best in the world" and from there the bottom drops out fast. Yushin Okami is #3 at middleweight . . . really? And featherweight drops off equally fast. I'm not saying that Anderson Silva isn't an amazing fighter. He is. I'm not saying Jose Aldo isn't an amazing fighter. He is. I'm just saying that they don't face the stacked opposition of a GSP, where the two and three guys in the weight class are also top ten pound-for-pound fighters. You look at the precision striking that GSP used against Koscheck, it was as good as anything Anderson Silva ever did, it's just GSP is fighting much better guys. Koscheck is one of those better guys.

After the fight, Koscheck took the trash talk down. He flatly said he had talked the trash to boost the hype, he thanked Montreal and said GSP was the "best pound-for-pound fighter in the world". I hope he likes the bigger paycheck the hype caused, because not once did GSP and Koscheck touch gloves respectfully and GSP blasted apart Koscheck's skull. I hope his paycheck keeps him warm in the hospital. I found myself distinctly unimpressed that after he got his ass kicked he was suddenly "respectful". Like his behavior in The Ultimate Fighter towards Brad Tate, it follows the classic bully pattern. Someone stands up to the bully and he backs down. It doesn't mean the bully isn't a bully. GSP was completely respectful, praising Koscheck and even asking the Montreal audience to give the guy a break. GSP comes off as a decent guy even after following up his crushing victories over Koscheck in The Ultimate Fighter with a literally skull breaking victory in the octagon.

I suspect this is it for Koscheck's title pretensions. He'll still be able to make money as a fighter, but the odds of him getting another title shot are pretty low. GSP dominated him. GSP barely broke a sweat in the fight and it's the second time GSP beat Koscheck easily. I don't know how this is going to effect Koscheck's rankings, he was beaten by the best in the world in a fight everyone figured he'd lose, anyway, but he's 33 and there are a bunch of guys who are going to get a shot at GSP before Koscheck could possibly hope to get a third rematch, a rematch for which there would be basically zero interest given their now well established relative skills: GSP wears the Viking hat, Koscheck is the bitch. Koscheck would be in line after Jake Shields, Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Martin Kampmann and whoever else might come up. Those four fights, alone, will take two and a half years to do, which means, realistically, Koscheck would be 36 by the time he got to fight GSP, again. (Koscheck's best hope is, realistically, that GSP moves up to welterweight, which would definitely throw him back into the contender mix.) Assuming the UFC would even care to put Koscheck up against GSP, again, after GSP brutally dominated Kosheck in their last two fights and assuming that Koscheck is even a contender, then. I'm sure that Koscheck will want to fight, again, but he's going to be sidelined for a long time because of this. If the UFC follows its normal procedure, they'll put him on a mandatory 180 day suspension and then he'll have to be cleared with a CAT scan. Brock Lesnar broke Heath Herring's orbital bone and Herring still hasn't returned to fighting after 2 years. It's possible GSP has retired Koscheck, so those extra pay-per-view buys better be able to keep him warm at night because his next paycheck might be a long way away.

Elsewise in UFC 124, Stephan Struve handily defeated Sean McCorkle about four minutes into the first round. After a near submission by McCorkle via kimura (a kind of figure four armbar) on the ground, Struve was able to reverse into a full mount and ground and pound McCorkle. It'll probably be the last we see of McCorkle in the UFC. McCorkle's submission victory over an past-his-prime and never-really-that-good Mark Hunt will now be contextualized as "pure luck" or "irrelevant". The mystery wasn't that McCorkle beat Hunt, but that Hunt was allowed in the UFC. Apparently, Dana White liked Struve's performance and is ready to move the 22 year old Dutchman up to contender status. Struve was also extremely gracious in victory. I like Struve. I don't know if he's championship material, yet, but he's twenty-two years old. He's got good heart and good skills and the time to turn them into great skills. And heaven knows the UFC heavyweight division needs new guys.

In his fight against the skilled John Howard, Thiago Alves proved he's still a top guy. He utterly dominated the fight and broke his two fight losing streak. Granted, that "losing streak" was the both the champ, Georges St-Pierre, and the number one contender, Jon Fitch, so losing to two best guys in your division isn't precisely humiliating . . . but in the Fitch fight, Alves didn't make weight and didn't perform well, probably because he messed himself trying to make weight. But Alves apparently has a new diet and made weight easily and he looked his old self with crisp punches, brutal leg kicks and rock solid takedown defense. I like Alves and I'm glad he was able to bounce back from his losses to GSP and Fitch, and especially the shadow that was cast over him because of his fight with Fitch. I'd like to see a Alves vs. Fitch rematch at some point, see what Alves can do when he's not lethargic from a bad cut.

Which pretty much clears up all my strong feelings about UFC 124. It was a good card. I hope to see more Jim Miller (who won with a nasty kneebar against a skilled BJJ fighter and whom Dana White says is now "on his radar") and Mark Bocek (who had a wicked submission via a triangle that he started from the mount and then spun it over to cinch up the choke; I'm really happy to see more Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters being aggressive and not relying on people fighting them in the closed guard).

But . . . now to obsess about the Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort fight. Brazilian on Brazilian action, oh, yeah, bab-ee. As far as it goes, I find myself increasingly on Belfort's side. Silva's last few fights have been pretty underwhelming. I know he had a hurt rib when he fought Chael Sonnen and lucked out to get the win, and you can attribute his poor showing to that injury, but before that his performance against Demain Maia, basically refusing to engage in the last two rounds because he knew he'd won the first three, makes me doubt his will to win. I am suspecting Vitor Belfort might sort that out -- will we see the Silva who knocked out Forrest Griffin easily or the Silva who ran from Demian Maia? In terms of personality, Silva is also something of a cipher. He is respectful, but he mostly shuns the spotlight, I feel. Belfort, I believe, is still hungry for the title and heaven knows he has brutal knockout skills, winning four of his last five fights by knockout. He has wins over tough guys like Rich Franklin, Wanderlei Silva and Randy Couture. We'll see.

Predictions on GSP vs. Koscheck and Sean McCorkle is a trollin' dork

The fight is tomorrow. I'm sure that by Monday I'll have some after fight report. But the only fight I'm really invested in, on the whole card, is GSP vs. Koscheck. Well, actually, I'm also pretty interested in Struve vs. McCorkle. But first GSP and Kos.

I've seen most of the pro fights by both fighters. They've also fought before and it was an interesting match to watch a second time. GSP, on two cards, lost the first round -- it was a reasonably close first round with Koscheck seeming to have a very slight upper hand in standing striking and Koscheck ended the round taking down GSP, but the middle of the round was GSP. On my scorecard, I gave the round to GSP but I can see how someone else would give it to Koscheck. The next two rounds were all GSP, the second round almost frighteningly so. The fight, as a whole, was dominated by GSP.

The first with Koscheck in their first fight was the last time GSP lost a round. I'm sure the UFC commentators will go on at considerable length about how Koscheck has grown as a fighter and that's certainly true. They will probably focus less on how much GSP has grown during the same time, which is at least as much and quite possibly even more, it's just that we have trouble wrapping our heads around how good GSP has improved because he's always been so good.

Subsequently, both fighters have fought about the same number of fights. GSP, in his fights since Koscheck is 6-0. Koscheck, since losing to GSP, is 6-2. GSP has been generally fighting better fighters because, well, he's the champ, including dominating Thaigo Alves in Alves' title shot . . . a fighter who dominated Koscheck in their fight, almost knocking him out pretty much every round. Then Koscheck was knocked out by Paulo Thiago. Paulo Thiago hasn't gotten a title shot and might never. He's on the line of deserving one -- which is to say, quite possibly not a worthwhile opponent for GSP. And he clobbered Koscheck.

Four of Koscheck's last six victories have been stoppages, whereas GSP has only managed to stop three of his six. The difference is, again, in the quality of the fighters. Koscheck stopped Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Dustin Hazelett and Frank Trigg by KO or TKO. Yoshida and Hazelett will never be confused for championship material and Frank Trigg was in his late thirties when he fought Koscheck. Koscheck submitted Anthony Johnson who, again, will not be terribly confused with a top contender. Meanwhile, in his last six fights, GSP stopped UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes (generally thought to be the greatest UFC welterweight of all time with the possible exception of GSP) with an armbar, former welterweight champion Matt Serra with brutal knees to the body and BJ Penn, former lightweight and welterweight champion, with a corner submission because, y'know, they had to get Penn to the hospital after the savage ground and pound GSP gave to him. GSP has been stopping Hall of Famers and former champions, Koscheck guys who are too old to be in title contention and, well, no-bodies.

So, "who's going to win" isn't a particularly hard analysis. GSP has fought better guys and dominated them. Koscheck has lost to, granted, world-class Thiago Alves and the not-quite-world-class Paulo Thiago, and the general quality of his fights have been less than GSP. Not to mention that GSP has beaten Koscheck before. So we shouldn't be talking about if GSP is going to win but how GSP is going to win, because Koscheck's chances appear to be slim. For him to win would require a lucky punch or an unexpected injury on GSP's part. But, realistically, we should be talking about how GSP is going to win.

The safe money is that GSP will win like he won last time -- by dominating Koscheck on the ground. Even Koscheck has said that GSP will "probably take me down". Then, of course, he said he has some "tricks", but the truth is that Koscheck isn't a tricky fighter. He wins in two ways -- taking the guy to the mat and dominating them with his superior wrestling skills (an option he doesn't realistically have with GSP) or using his left to set up a right overhand hook haymaker while throwing caution to the wind. But . . . tricks? No. Every fight Koscheck has won he has won either by wrestling dominance (often, as most recently with Semtex Daley, with the old lay and pray technique or using his wrestling to achieve a good ground and pound or get a rear naked choke) or throwing a couple of bombs and hope the other guy walks into them. He's not a complex fighter nor a particularly intelligent one.

GSP is . . . a complex fighter. After Penn's corner threw in the towel, GSP talked about his strategy was to get Penn to the ground and . . . I dunno, do some crazy wrestling pressure points thing to force blood up into Penn's shoulders to stifle the effectiveness of his punches. It was crazy that this was part of his plan, but it makes sense considering Penn's knockout power. And every time he fights, he's got a plan. So in his first fight with Koscheck, the first thing GSP did was a takedown to "take him out of his comfort zone", because GSP had noticed that Koscheck had never fought from the bottom. It worked. Koscheck, afterward, was pretty surprised that GSP went after his wrestling and attributes the loss to the fact that he had been so focused on stand-up fighting and the presumption of his superior wrestling that he didn't imagine GSP might attack him in that way. Which is why I can't just say the Penn "plan" is bullshit -- GSP does things other people don't even imagine doing. He's the kind of fighter that makes you realize what a kung fu master is, that there's this thing he does that transcends the physical into some crazy realm of combat psychology and physiology that's just universes above "throwing a good overhand right hook". So, I wouldn't actually bet that Koscheck has too many tricks but I would bet GSP has some pretty good ones.

Taken together, I think that GSP will notice something I noticed when watching Koscheck's fights. The thing I noticed is . . . Koscheck has never seriously been kneed by anyone. I heard rumors on the Internet -- ha, I know! -- that GSP has been practicing a lot of muay Thai. And on Countdown to UFC 124, they spent a lot of time focusing on GSP's muay Thai coach.

GSP already has good knees. He's stopped fights by kneeing downed opponents in the body, including the tough Matt Serra. He has thrown standing knees, too, but he isn't an artist with them like an Anderson Silva or Wanderlei Silva (no relation; Silva is the Brazilian "Smith", apparently, and it's coincidence they both like knees) -- but GSP's got all the traits. He's got great balance, he's got great grappling, and he's great at transitioning from striking to grappling. His legs are already like pneumatic pistons. So, I'm hoping for the plum clinch and down goes Koscheck's head and up comes GSP's knee in a highlight reel facial obliteration that leaves Koscheck soaked in blood and asking where he is in the ambulance.

If not that, I hope GSP just ground and pounds the guy, like he did to Jon Fitch and that is the safe bet -- Fitch is a better MMA wrestler than Koscheck and it stands to reason if GSP did it to Fitch he can do it to Koscheck. I want it drawn out and painful. I want Koscheck to understand the totality of his domination. I want him to realize that he will always be the inferior fighter. Failing that, a good Cro-kick that puts Koscheck's head in orbit would be nice.

And then I want to forget about Josh Koscheck. He'll have gotten his shot, which I admit he deserves, and afterward he can go back to being a respectable but not particularly noteworthy fighter in the autumn years of his career. I even hope he has the brains to stop before he becomes a circus sideshow act like Ken Shamrock and Chuck Liddell (and where Tito Ortiz is on the cusp of being).

Okay, now about Stephan Struve and Sean McCorkle. I don't particularly know either fighter very well, though I've seen both of them fight. They're pretty good. I'm not sure either of them is in top contender status, yet, but they both could be in the not too distant future . . . and, quite frankly, the UFC's heavyweight ranks are pretty thin right now and they need to find guys to fight Frank Mir, Brock Lesnar, Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. You can't really have a league with those four guys fighting each other, even assuming that Lesnar wants to fight (which I have heard is in question), so it's more like three and a half guys, and Mir and Lesnar have already fought twice and Lesnar and Velasquez once. So, sure, the UFC needs to get their heavyweights up to speed and Struve and McCorkle are prospects for contender status (tho' neither of them will, I think, make it). But they're not marquee fighters right now and neither one of them has caught my particular attention so while I'm interested in the fight, it's a little abstract, as in the sense that I hope it's a good, tough fight.

But, apparently, McCorkle is a trolling asshole trash talking master of disturbing proportions. In particular, he's the first MMA fighter to really take the trash talking to social networking sites. On TV and in front of people, well, you've at least kinna sorta gotta behave. You start spewing obscenities, they'll just focus the camera away from you. Not to mention, that kind of verbal assault is cause in some states for the other guy to kick your ass and claim fighting words.

As anyone who has spent any time on the Internet knows, none of that is true there. McCorkle is the first MMA fighter who is also a reasonably diligent and skillful Internet troll. Yikes. I figure most of the people reading this have an idea what's coming next, where I'm going to quote McCorkle talking about Struve. Such as:

The only thing Stefan Struve has ever finished in his whole life is "another guy off".

Or: Stefan Struve was once arrested for impersonating a cocksucker.

Or: Stefan Struve pees sitting down.

So, yeah, really respectful. Needless to say, I'm on Struve's side and, to be fair, he's slightly favored to win, so it won't be a shock if he does.