The Greatest MMA News Column 12.01.09: Can GSP Be the Best Ever?

Posted by Dan Plunkett on 12.01.2009

411's Dan Plunkett discusses what it will take for Georges St. Pierre to become the best fighter pound-for-pound of all time, The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping, Gegard Mousasi finally makes it to his seat, and much more!

Georges St. Pierre Wants to be Known as the Best Pound-For-Pound Fighter of All Time

As much as I say Fedor Emelianenko is the greatest fighter of all time in my columns, it may not be too long before I'm saying that about Georges St. Pierre. What the 28-year-old St. Pierre has accomplished in his career is insane. Look at his record and you'll see all of his opponents, even the ones earlier in his career, are name fighters. At UFC 65, St. Pierre destroyed Matt Hughes, then the #1 ranked welterweight fighter in the world and one of the 2-3 pound-for-pound best in the world. Matt Serra was the #1 ranked welterweight in the world leading into their UFC 83 rematch. Frank Trigg, Jon Fitch, and Thiago Alves were ranked number 2 in the world at the time they fought Georges. Sean Sherk was a top welterweight when he took on GSP at UFC 56. Matt Hughes was ranked #3 in the world leading into their rubber match. Had BJ Penn not gone crazy and moved up to middleweight and beyond prior to their bout at UFC 58, he would have been ranked in the top 3 of the welterweight division. By time of their second meeting, Penn was considered the best lightweight in the world as well as one of the top 4 pound-for-pound fighters in the world. When St. Pierre took on Josh Koscheck at UFC 74, "Kos" was considered the #4 welterweight in the world.

My point: the number of high quality of fighters St. Pierre has fought and beaten is unparalleled in our sport.

Despite this, he remains the #2 welterweight in the history of the sport, in my opinion, but not for long. After two more dominating title defenses (the only kind he knows), I'd move St. Pierre ahead of Matt Hughes. The thing about Hughes is that he won the title, defended it five times against fighters like Carlos Newton (highly underrated today), Hayato Sakurai (considered #1 welterweight until loss to Anderson Silva 7 months before he fought Hughes), Sean Sherk (elite welterweight at the time), and Frank Trigg (top ranked welterweight in the world not named Matt Hughes). After losing his title to BJ Penn, he defeated Renato Verissimo before regaining the belt by beating a young but tough Georges St. Pierre. He first defended his title against a still top ranked Frank Trigg and then defeated late-replacement Joe Riggs (who didn't make weight, making it a non-title fight), before finding himself in the biggest fight of his career. At UFC 60, Hughes demolished Royce Gracie in a non-title fight. Following that, he defeated BJ Penn in a rematch, which legitimized his current title reign.

Since the Penn rematch, Hughes' only big victory came in a grudge match against Matt Serra. In comparing the reigns of Hughes and St. Pierre, the thing that separates them is GSP's first title reign, or lack thereof. St. Pierre has been welterweight champion twice, not including one reign as interim champion, and defended his title three times. As I said earlier, 2 wins and I'd be willing to call him the greatest welterweight of all time. Even though his number of title defenses would match just those of Hughes' first reign, GSP's quality of competition while not champion (Karo Parisyan, Jay Hieron, Mayhem Miller, Trigg, Sherk, Penn, and Koscheck) pushes him ever-so-slightly ahead of Matt Hughes in my opinion.

In St. Pierre's quote though, he stated he wanted to be known as the best fighter pound-for-pound of all time. For all we know, he may very well be the best fighter of all time already in terms of his skill. Georges St. Pierre is a man with very few flaws when it comes to fighting. There may be better strikers than him, there may be better wrestlers than him, and there may be better grapplers than him, but there aren't many. And there certainly isn't another fighter in the world that excels at all aspects of the game the way GSP does.

One fighter that comes close is Anderson Silva, and he's a potential opponent for St. Pierre. Following his destruction of Forrest Griffin, Silva is widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. His striking is lethal and his ground game is very dangerous. One tool he seems to be missing is wrestling. Anderson's wrestling isn't bad, but it's not great either, though he did hit a nice switch against Nate Marquardt. This is St. Pierre's opening should a bout between the two take place.

Sure, St. Pierre could sit back in the welterweight division and probably defend the title 10 consecutive times if he wanted. At the end of that time, he would probably be considered the greatest ever. Or, he could defend the title 1-2 more times and then fight Anderson Silva for the middleweight title. Unlike BJ Penn's theoretical situation before UFC 94, it would be very hard for St. Pierre to keep both belts, since he wants to be bigger for middleweight but doesn't want to cut too much weight to make welterweight. Of course, there is a risk in fighting Anderson Silva. Silva would be favored against GSP, seeing as he's a very tough match-up for him given his length, strength, ground game, and striking.

Those are really St. Pierre's two main options when it comes to being known as the pound-for-pound best of all time. For me, aside from Fedor vs. Brock Lesnar, there is no fight I want to see more than St. Pierre vs. Silva.

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Back in June I introduced you, the loyal reader, to Gegard Mousasi's valiant quest to get to his seat at Affliction: Day of Reckoning. When I updated you, the still loyal reader, on the situation last month, Mr. Mousasi had still not made it to his seat. Well I am proud to announce, with the help of the UG's TSGIGOR, Gegard has FINALLY made it to his seat! Behold:

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The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale

Following Dana White's statement that season ten of The Ultimate Fighter was the best in the shows history, everybody had high hopes for this season. Not only were the heavyweights back in the house, but those heavyweights included Roy Nelson, Kimbo Slice, four former NFL players, and guys with good wrestling backgrounds like Justin Wren and Jon Madsen. On top of that, Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans were said to have Ortiz/Shamrock-esque animosity between them. Finally, the show debuted on September 16.

As you know if you saw the show, it wasn't one of the better seasons they've had. Many of the fighters didn't have the gas tank to go two rounds, but they did and it wasn't pretty. Matt Mitrione and Scott Junk had a good fight going until they punched themselves out a few minutes into the first round. The much hyped Kimbo Slice-Roy Nelson fight ended in highly predictable fashion. I don't even want to talk about the James McSweeney/Wes Shivers debacle. But the show still had Rampage and Rashad, which could make it an interesting show, right? Wrong. Once Rampage announced his retirement (despite the 99.99% chance he comes back and fights Rashad anyway) I lost a lot of interest in their banter. Had the A-Team movie never come along I would probably not have lost interest in this season by week 7 and would be looking forward with great anticipation towards their fight at UFC 107.

While this clearly wasn't a season I was fond of, there were some bright spots. Brendan Schaub, Marcus Jones, Darrill Schoonover, and Justin Wren all looked good in their fights given their experience in the sport. Overwhelming favorite Roy Nelson didn't have too many problems getting to the semi-finals (though I still think he should have gone straight to the UFC). Plus Kimbo (somewhat) defended a takedown!

That brings me to the finale on Saturday night. The finals or the show is a good, interesting fight that I'm pretty excited about, but that's really all I can say about it. In the main event, rising star 22-year-old Jon Jones takes on Matt Hamill. This is a very interesting fight that will show just how good Jones' wrestling skills are. Hamill is the best wrestler he has faced in his short career, and I think he presents a major obstacle for Jones.

Make no mistake about it; Jon Jones is going to be a very good, if not great fighter one day. Right now, he's wowing people with his throws and unorthodox striking (SPINNING BACK ELBOW!), plus he now trains out of Greg Jackson's camp. Add in that he's only 22 and has been fighting for less than 20 months, and you have yourself a scary future opponent for any light heavyweight.



Despite Jones' bright future, he's going to have his hands full with Matt Hamill. Hamill is (on paper) an even better wrestler than Jones with improving striking. Since coming off of The Ultimate Fighter 3, "The Hammer" has put together a very respectable 6-2 record, with the losses coming against Rich Franklin and Michael Bisping. With a win, Hamill will just outside the upper level of the UFC light heavyweight division. It could also give him the chance to fight Mark Coleman, where the loser would be forced to change their nickname to "The Nail."

To most people watching the show, the biggest fight of the night will be Kimbo vs. Houston Alexander. In fact, I too am excited for this fight. Don't bet on it going to the second round, as both men will look (and one will likely succeed) to end it early. The way I see it, the first man to connect cleanly is going to win the fight. I'd give the slight edge to Alexander here, because he has better clinch striking, showed in his last fight he had powerful leg kicks as well, and I think he's faster than Kimbo. Slice will be 15-20 pounds heavier than Houston by fight time and he has knockout power, so he certainly has a chance here. Both men are on an equal playing field in terms of their chins, with both having been knocked out within the first 15 seconds of a fight in the past.

Alexander, 2-3 in the UFC, needs to win this fight. After exploding onto the scene with a vicious knockout of Keith Jardine and then another quick stoppage victory over Alessio Sakara, "The Assassin" has lost three straight fights in the UFC. Two of those fights showed his lack of skill on the ground (Thiago Silva and Eric Schafer) and in April of 2008 he was knocked out in eight seconds by James Irvin. Quite frankly, the only reason he remains on the UFC roster is because he is always in exciting fights and he doesn't get paid much.

If he wants to stay in the UFC, Kimbo will need to win this fight as well. A loss would make it his third in a row, and it would likely see him get knocked out. I don't know what Kimbo is getting paid for this fight, but he'll probably be the top earner on the card. A three fight winless streak would really start to devalue him in the eyes of the casual fan, and as a result the UFC wouldn't be willing to pay nearly as much to keep him around. Though there is a possibility that if the fight ends up being a Frye/Takayama-like war, both guys would be given another fight in the UFC.

Rounding out the main card is Frank(ie) Edgar vs. Matt Veach. Veach is a replacement for Kurt Pellegrino, who would have been a good fight for Edgar, but I think "The Answer" should be fighting the elite fighters of the lightweight division after his win over Sean Sherk. Hopefully that happens after he gets the win here.

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Um…I think it's real.

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Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping in the Works for UFC 110

This was rumored for Bisping's comeback fight, but Wanderlei's plastic surgery put a stop to that. Now they are scheduled to do battle in Australia. I don't like this fight for one reason: I really wanted to see Wanderlei vs. Sexyama. That would have been a great fight with many storylines behind it.

Bisping vs. Silva should be a good fight though and will be a good test for both fighters. Despite his only recent win coming in a quick knockout over Keith Jardine, Wanderlei can still compete with good fighters. Now that he' in the middleweight division fighting fighters closer in size to him it will be interesting to see what approach he takes. Should he use his clinch that has been missing from his UFC career, I think he has a very good chance of winning this fight.

Minotauro vs. Velasquez Moved to UFC 109

I'm very happy they didn't just give Velasquez a new opponent; this is a very interesting match-up. Velasquez has awesome wrestling and great control. Minotauro has the submissions advantage and the striking advantage. I think we'll see Velasquez try to stand, but Minotauto will hurt him. After that Cain will go for the takedown and get caught in a submission.

The winner of this fight will be next in line for a title shot. The UFC should have more than enough time to promote the winner against the winner of Lesnar/Carwin with Lesnar being out for a while.



That's it for this week. Follow me on twitter on the link below. I hope you enjoyed the column, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for reading.

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