Penn's Pre-Fight Comments Fail To Match Actual Fight Performance

Everyone already knew that Georges St-Pierre is an amazing athlete. Last night, against ‘the Prodigy’, BJ Penn, he showed that he is possibly the smartest fighter in MMA, too. He reminded me of Egghead Jr. outsmarting Foghorn Leghorn, having reduced Penn’s strategy to a series of simple problems he had easily solved by the end of the first round.

The first five minutes saw the fighters mostly feeling each other out, with GSP having a slight edge. A single-leg here by GSP, a clinch there by Penn, sporadic punches by both, and a couple of nice leg kicks by St-Pierre. GSP muscled and leaned on Penn, pushed him, and BJ’s batteries started to run down. After the conclusion of the first round, the notion that Penn was a worthy challenger to GSP had mere minutes to live.

From the opening seconds of round two, when GSP rushed in and tagged Penn with a stiff jab, the fight was all St-Pierre. He dominated the striking. He threw Penn into the cage when he wanted to. Even Penn’s vaunted take-down defense failed him, as GSP had his way with the lightweight champion. The fight moved wherever and whenever GSP wanted it to. He started to shoot and then threw a hard left. He showed one thing and then did another. He knew what Penn wanted to do, and cruelly denied him any chance to do it.

Like Al Bundy showing one of Kelly’s dates the door, and ramming his head into every piece of furniture they passed along the way, Georges St-Pierre took BJ Penn on a tour of the Octagon, and at every stop Penn found pain, fatigue, and frustration as he was dominated by the bigger, stronger, and smarter GSP. All the things that make Penn a great fighter - his quickness, his guard, his flexibility, his striking, his BJJ - GSP denied Penn the chance to effectively use any of them.

One thing is for sure: by quitting, Penn has forever lost the right to call anyone else ‘a little bitch’ or himself ‘God’.

Unless Thiago Alves can do better, GSP has run out of viable challengers in his weight class and shares one thing in common with fellow champion Anderson ‘the Spider’ Silva: both have one realistic fight left before they can be considered to have cleaned out their weight classes. That would leave them with one more meaningful test, to face each other. Dana White may be reluctant to admit it, but after Bisping or Maia, Silva will have to reach out to other weight classes to test himself and find fights the public can get excited about, and GSP will be in exactly the same position if he disposes of Alves as easily as he did BJ Penn.

Despite his public comments to the contrary, it is reasonable to believe that White and the UFC may be dependent enough on big-money, high-profile super fights that they’ll have to book GSP against Silva if they both win their next fights. The alternative will be a bored Silva retiring, possibly followed by GSP looking to other promotions if needed to keep fighting top talent and continuing to improve. It would be foolish not to give these great fighters the challenges they need to keep improving and doing what it takes to be at their best.