UFC 94: St. Pierre vs Penn Recap

• Only two words are needed to describe last night’s fight between Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn: total domination. GSP beat BJ Penn in striking, grappling, wrestling, and any other aspect of MMA you can think of. After a feeling out stage in the first round, St. Pierre kicked into gear and never looked back. On the other hand, as one of my Twitter friends described it, after the second round BJ Penn was already back on a beach in Hilo.
• How ironic is it that a fight involving Lyoto Machida was one of only two fights that didn’t go to decision? Once again, Machida looked very sharp, this time picking apart Thiago Silva and landing a nice KO in the process.
• While I did pick Jon Jones to win the fight against Stephan Bonnar, I didn’t expect him to control Bonnar as easily as he did. Jones threw Bonnar around like a rag doll and put on a clinic both on the feet and in the clinch. A nice win for Jones and a quick taste of what we can expect from him as he matures in the coming years.
• Leaving a fight to the judges’ scorecards is always a dangerous proposition, especially in a fight like the Nathan Diaz vs. Clay Guida matchup. I had Diaz winning the fight 29-28, but I knew the judges would score it for Guida after the final bell sounded. Guida did absolutely no damage outside the first round, and simply resorted to bear-hugging Diaz for the final ten minutes. Diaz was the better striker and was more active in attempting to finish the fight, but Guida didn’t provide him an opening.
• It was good to see Karo Parisyan back in the Octagon, but I don’t think he won that fight against Dong Hyun Kim. Another close fight, that I personally saw going the other way. Karo kept his composure, but you could see (and hear in between rounds) that Karo has a lot of work left to do if he is going to even approach his former level of competition.
• For all the garbage that BJ Penn talked about Georges St. Pierre not being a warrior and having no heart, I guess Penn learned otherwise didn’t he. Once again, Penn gassed out physically and mentally and it was Penn’s camp who threw in the towel. While it wasn’t technically BJ that quit, it was a Jay Dee Penn that called it quits. A tapout is still a tapout BJ whether its between rounds or not.
• I still think the Thiago Alves fight is a tough matchup for Georges St. Pierre. Alves is much quicker and more explosive on the feet than other strikers in the welterweight division and could pose a few problems for GSP. I’m really looking forward to the matchup, and still think GSP will be able to control him on the ground, but Alves does pose some interesting problems for the champ.
• If this was supposed to be the BJ Penn in “the best shape of his life” then the rest of the lightweight division has to be encouraged. Sure, Penn looks like a completely different fighter at 155 lbs., but it’s clear his conditioning still isn’t where it needs to be. If Penn couldn’t get into good cardio shape for a fight of this magnitude, how can we expect him to for any other fight. Penn’s future lightweight opponents just need to gameplan to get into those later rounds and they have a chance at knocking off the champ.