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St. Pierre’s standards are above and beyond
By Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports
NEWARK, N.J. – Nobody left particularly happy after Georges St. Pierre’s retained his Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight le with a domination of Dan Hardy in the main event of Saturday night’s UFC 111.
St. Pierre wasn’t happy, even after winning five straight rounds to extend his UFC record to 25 straight-round victories dating back nearly three years.
He came in with a plan to take the fight down to the ground, and win via submission. The first part of his game plan was flawless. The second wasn’t.
St. Pierre had a few close opportunities to finish, most notably an armbar in the first round and a Kimura in the fourth round.
But a combination of what St. Pierre said was a minor technical flaw in the application of the moves, and the guts of Hardy in refusing to tap when things appeared bleak, saw the British star survive to the final horn, losing on scores of 50-43, 50-44 and 50-45.
“I was disappointed in my performance,” said St. Pierre (20-2). “I tried to finish him with an armbar and a Kimura. I forgot the technical application. I used an incorrect angle and the wrong leverage.”
Right after the fight, St. Pierre (ever the perfectionist) went straight to his Jiu Jitsu coach and asked what was wrong. He was told the mistakes he made, and said he would never make them again. He noted that in training, people would tap out to those moves right away to avoid injury, but in a fight, the mentality is different, and people will fight to the end to escape.
Hardy (23-7, 1 no-contest), for his part, couldn’t have been happy to be in a fight in which he was heavily booed by the pro-St. Pierre crowd. Still, Hardy, a native of Nottingham, England, won praise for his survival ability and and was still fighting his heart out in round five. But he got almost no offense in for 25 minutes.
Hardy expected to be taken down, but he was able to get to his feet and then tried implementing a stand-up game, where he believed he had the edge.
It didn’t happen. St. Pierre took him down at will, ten times in ten attempts over five rounds. The few times Hardy got back up, or got a momentary positional advantage in the case St. Pierre missed on a submission attempt, St. Pierre would immediately get out of trouble and take him right back down.
The crowd of about 17,000 fans, which paid a gate of $4 million at the Prudential Center, reacted more to seeing the popular St. Pierre fight and less so because the fight was all that exciting.
Arguably UFC’s most popular fighter, St. Pierre was heavily cheered throughout the first three rounds, but in the fourth, when St. Pierre opened the round with another takedown, the crowd groaned. When he opened the fifth round with another takedown, the move was greeted with a smattering of boos, likely the first for St. Pierre since he became one of the sport’s megastars.
UFC president Dana White conceded that the reaction of people watching on pay-per-view wasn’t positive.
“My twitter account was burning up and people weren’t happy,” said White. “They were saying we wanted to see a fight, not an amateur wrestling match.”
White said he didn’t agree, noting that this was mixed martial arts and the object is to exploit weaknesses, and Hardy’s takedown defense was a weakness. He said St. Pierre’s game plan wasn’t to stand and trade, something St. Pierre, who always looks at fights like a mathematical equation, later confirmed.
“I take the fight where I have the highest percentage chance of winning,” said St. Pierre. “Even though I think I could beat Dan Hardy in a stand-up, that is his strength. He’s weaker on the ground so my game plan was to take it there.”
But he admitted frustration at his inability to finish with a submission on the ground.
“When you go in looking for a submission, you often don’t get it. I’m stronger than I was and went to physically force a submission and I didn’t use the correct technique.”
The night was supposed to be a showcase for the welterweight division because St. Pierre was defending, and the consensus No. 2 and No. 3 fighters, Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves, were scheduled to battle for what would have likely been the next le shot. Fitch and Alves both had previous shots at St. Pierre, going the distance but losing five straight rounds as part of his streak.
Alves, though, had a medical issue come up in an MRI of his brain on Wednesday, and was not cleared to fight.
Fitch (25-3, 1 no contest) won a 30-27 decision over replacement fighter Ben Saunders (8-2-2). Similar to St. Pierre, Fitch won a match in which he mostly took Saunders down, although he had to fight harder than St. Pierre to get his takedowns.
Fitch smothered Saunders on the ground in what was also not a crowd-pleasing performance.
Unlike St. Pierre, who has so much star power the audience stayed interested in a one-sided match, Fitch did not get the same benefit from the crowd, which lost interest as the fight went on.
Fears regarding Alves’ future as a fighter were alleviated after he saw a specialist on Friday in New York. He will be undergoing a minor surgical procedure on Wednesday, will be able to train two weeks later and is expected to be able to fight soon.
White notes Fitch vs. Alves could still take place, depending on the schedule. Fitch, at the post-fight press conference, immediately threw his name into the hat for a rematch.
“I’m 12-1 in the UFC, with one loss to GSP,” he said. “I’ve won four straight. I wish they would have been finishers. But I’m a much better fighter than when I fought Georges the first time [nearly two years ago].”
White responded, half jokingly, that if he wanted a le shot, he should fight Josh Koscheck, his teammate and training partner at the San Jose, Calif., based American Kickboxing Academy. Fitch said that wouldn’t happen.
“If we were to fight, it would be in the gym with the doors closed,” said Fitch.
“That’ll make a lot of money,” said White sarcastically in response.
Selling a St. Pierre-Fitch rematch would be difficult because after their first match, it wouldn’t be easy to sell the idea that Fitch could win.
“Every time it’s a different fight,” said St. Pierre, who disagreed with that assessment. “He’s improved. I’m a different fighter.”
But Fitch wouldn’t be alone. St. Pierre’s takedowns and ground control is so good that nobody who isn’t an excellent wrestler can stop him. Neither Fitch nor Matt Hughes could, and both are very good wrestlers.
Koscheck won a round from St. Pierre and was the last opponent to have a compe ive match with him, a 2007 fight that St. Pierre won via unanimous decision. Stylistically, he would stand the best chance to at least make it a back-and-forth fight. And from a business standpoint, because of Koscheck’s personality, it would probably be the most successful match in the division as well.
Koscheck faces Paul Daley, a great striker, on May 8 in Montreal, in a match that could go either way. Daley, unfortunately, has similar strengths and weaknesses as Hardy. Daley may be a better stand-up fighter than either St. Pierre or Hardy, but a St. Pierre vs. Daley match figures to go almost identical to Saturday’s fight.
