Georges St.Pierre: Is Moving to Middleweight the Best Choice?

Since UFC 100 we've all been bombarded by Brock Lesnar news. What was he thinking in his post fight interview? Who will he fight next? Is Fedor coming to the UFC?

I'll answer those questions right now so we can move on to a much more important, yet completely overshadowed, topic.

What was he thinking? He was still selling the fight and he was just trying to get some more pops out of the crowd. He just went about it the wrong way.

Who is his next opponent? That's already been decided. The winner of the UFC 104 fight between Shane Carwin and Cain Velazquez. So, in my opinion he will get his revenge on Carwin for talking trash because Carwin should KO the glass chinned wrestler.

Will Fedor come to the UFC? As sick of this question as I am, I'll go out on a limb and say yes. Dana gets what Dana wants. He wants Fedor, we want Fedor, and Fedor wants...well, I'm not really sure what Fedor wants, but if he wants to be remembered as the best ever, he needs to fight in the octagon.

Okay, now onto the more important topic. The idea has been tossed around quite a bit as of late. The dream fight between Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva. As a guy that has expressed interest in this match, I have recently come to ask myself this question.

What is the best thing for Georges?

GSP is easily the best welterweight in the world. There is absolutely no question about that. The UFC has the single most stacked welterweight division in all of MMA. No question about that. But is a move to Middleweight the best choice for GSP? I highly doubt it.

Georges himself has stated that he walks around at 183-184 pounds. For those who do not know, the middleweight division requires you to be 185 pounds, give or take one single pound.

Anderson Silva is the reigning middleweight king. He has been known to walk around at anywhere from 215 to 230 pounds. He'll usually cut about 20-30 pounds depending on what division he is fighting at. Remember, this guy is more than capable of making the light-heavyweight weight requirement of 205 pounds.

So you're probably asking why I am telling you all of this? I mean, if these guys decided to face off at 185, it doesn't matter what their walking weights are, they'll both be 185 pounds come fight time, right?

Wrong. Fighters, when cutting weight, will dehydrate themselves. Being that about 65% of the human body is water, the easiest way to cut weight quickly is to reduce, or completely stall taking in water.

Fighters will sit in saunas, where trash bags that suffocate sweat glands, and partake in cardio exercises in order to reduce the amount of water in the body.

They will then get weighed the day before the fight and immediately start taking in fluids, usually water mixed with electrolytes. One great example of this was Thiago Alves at his UFC 100 weigh-in. Right after stepping off of the scale, a member of his camp gave Thiago a water bottle.

Once restarting fluid intake, a fighter will rapidly put weight back on. Anderson Silva, once done with weigh-ins, could end up approaching 200 pounds. GSP will be nowhere near that.

That's a good 15 pound weight difference. Now, I'm not saying that GSP can't overcome big weight differentials ( I'm sure Thiago Alves weighed much more at the time of their fight), but let's factor in other things.

Anderson Silva is 6'2 with a reach from 77 to 78 inches depending on who you ask. GSP is 5'10 with a reach of 76 inches.

Not to say that GSP has never overcome a reach disadvantage, but he has never had to fight anybody remotely close to the striking ability of Anderson Silva, let alone give up reach to that guy.

Now what if this fight ends up on the ground? We saw GSP relentlessly take Thiago to the ground, who's to say he can't do that to Anderson?

Dan Henderson is the only guy to win a round against Anderson and he did so by taking Anderson down and nullifying Anderson's striking. If GSP can get Anderson to the ground and avoid Anderson's black belt caliber jiu-jitsu, he could beat Anderson.

The only problem with doing so is that it would be very dangerous if he were to shoot for the take-down and fail. Once in Anderson's clinch range, GSP is prone to those devastating knees that have been known to make opponents uglier and turn a man's lights off.

GSP has absolutely nothing to gain from moving to middleweight. If he were to stay at welterweight, he could challenge Matt Hughes' role as the greatest welterweight in the history of MMA. The only Welterweight challenger not in the UFC, Jake Shields, has expressed interests in coming to the UFC. Should he just play the waiting game?

By moving to middleweight, he would risk a loss. What's so bad about that? Ask BJ Penn.

Nobody wants to be a reigning champion that lost his last fight. It would dramatically affect his status as best in the world, and would more than likely affect his fan drawing ability, and I know Dana doesn't want that.

The only way I would recommend this fight to Georges, would be if the fight was held at a catch-weight. Conduct the fight at 177.5 pounds so both men would be 7.5 pounds from their usual fight weight. If catch-weight fights are working for Strikeforce, I don't see why the UFC hasn't tried one. And, no, Royce Gracie vs. Matt Hughes was not a legitimate fight.

Should the Welterweight King stay atop his throne and wait for a reasonable heir to come and usurp him? Or should said King relinquish his throne, if only for a day, and challenge the Middleweight King for his throne?

I don't have the answer to that question. All I can say is, BJ Penn. We saw what happened when he tried to be the ruler of two kingdoms. Why then, should Georges St. Pierre attempt it?