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.