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.

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.