The History of Criticizing Georges St Pierre

Many fans have reacted very negatively to Georges St. Pierre's performance against Dan Hardy. The criticism comes down to two main arguments. The first criticism is that St. Pierre doesn't finish fights, and the second criticism is of St. Pierre's style, which has been labeled as boring, and  more like wrestling than MMA.

These arguments against Georges St. Pierre aren't exactly new, and they really don't even make a ton of sense, but since they're not new, before I go into defending St. Pierre against these charges, it's worth looking at the history of the criticism against St. Pierre.

A History of Non-Violence

1. St. Pierre vs. Penn 1

After BJ Penn lost to St. Pierre at UFC 58 largely because of St. Pierre's takedowns, Penn questioned the decision and said that if that's the way fights are scored, the UFC should be renamed "The Ultimate Takedown Championships."

In the months and years that followed, Penn would continue to claim that he was the true winner of this fight.

2. St. Pierre vs Koscheck

In his first fight following his UFC 69 loss to Matt Serra, St. Pierre defeated Josh Koscheck with a strategy that included putting Koscheck on his back and controlling him from there for a decision win.

3. St. Pierre vs Hughes 3

Despite owning a huge striking advantage, St. Pierre chose not to fight on the feet against Hughes. Instead, St. Pierre dominated the rubber match against Hughes by ground-and-pounding him until he was able to force the submission at the end of the second round.

4. St. Pierre vs. Serra 2

Again, despite owning a theoretical striking edge, St. Pierre used his wrestling skill to help defeat Serra at UFC 83.

5. St. Pierre vs. Fitch

In the buildup to their UFC 87 clash, Jon Fitch declared that St. Pierre had become gun-shy since losing to Matt Serra.  He said that St. Pierre had become a wrestler because he was afraid of getting knocked out.

St. Pierre would win by decision.

6. St. Pierre vs. Penn 2

St. Pierre used his wrestling to take down and control Penn en route to a TKO stoppage at the end of the fourth round.

7. St. Pierre vs. Alves

St. Pierre did well on the feet, but won the fight by decision largely due to his wrestling and ground control.

St. Pierre would win by decision.

8. St. Pierre vs. Hardy

St. Pierre put on a clinic of takedowns and positional control.

St. Pierre would win by decision.

Analysis of the History of Non-Violence

Now that we have a good grasp of the history of the criticism of St. Pierre, it's time to address the separate issues.

Criticism 1: St. Pierre doesn't finish fights anymore.

This criticism obviously has some statistical truth to it. Over the past ten fights going back to St. Pierre's first win over Penn, St. Pierre has gone 9-1, including five decisions, four stoppage wins, and one loss.

Those numbers don't really look that great when compared to Anderson Silva's last ten, all victories, including nine finishes.

However, when compared to anybody other than Anderson Silva, St. Pierre doesn't really look so bad.

St. Pierre has won 59.1 percent of his fights via some form of stoppage. That record looks good in comparison to Penn's 57.1 percent, Randy Couture's 35.7 percent, or Lyoto Machida's 43.8 percent.

Penn's 15-5-1 record doesn't really look too impressive unless you consider the names involved and the way the fights went.

Couture's 18-10 record looks downright mediocre unless you consider the quality of his opposition.

Looking at the records of Couture and Penn should be enough to make anybody realize that there is a lot more to judging performances than simply looking at the fight record.

Over his past ten fights, St. Pierre has fought an extremely high level of competition.

There are certainly fighters with higher stoppage ratios, but few fighters with as long a list of elite competition.

Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, and BJ Penn are pound-for-pound quality fighters, Matt Hughes was the most dominant champion in UFC history, and Josh Koscheck is a perennial top five welterweight. Compiling dominant decisions over these fighters is far better than racking up stoppage victories over lesser competition.

Criticism 2: St. Pierre is gun-shy and turns all of his fights into wrestling matches.

The first mistake in this criticism that should be noted concerns a great misunderstanding of St. Pierre's recent fights.

While it's completely true that St. Piere won his fight with BJ Penn because of his takedowns, it's completely laughable that claim St. Pierre is winning his fights now with wrestling alone.

While St. Pierre's wrestling is one of his greatest assets, his win over Hardy had less to do with his wrestling prowess than people think.

St. Pierre was completely successful with his takedowns, so one might assume that his win came down to wrestling, but the truth is that because St. Pierre was so successful with his takedowns, most of the fight took place on the mat.

What took place on the mat had very little to do with freestyle or collegiate-style wrestling, and had much more to do with the kind of skill learned in no-gi Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling.

St. Pierre controlled Hardy by using guard passes and transitions that are far more common to submission grappling than they are to what is normally called wrestling.

The mistake people make is that they associate control and positional dominance with wrestling, and jiu jitsu becomes relegated only to the submission finishes.

At the higher levels of no-gi submission grappling, submissions are rare enough that fights are often decided by points, which are not usually awarded for submission attempts, but are awarded for takedowns, sweeps, guard passes, and positional control.

So, if you do wish to complain about St. Pierre's performance, you should instead complain not that he turned the fight into a wrestling match, but rather that he turned the fight into a submission grappling match (which was no contest).

Aside from the Hardy fight, criticisms of St. Pierre's other matches is equally troublesome.

First of all, the idea that St. Pierre became gun-shy after the Serra fight is simply laughable.

If you watch St. Pierre's fights early in his career, it's quite apparent that St. Pierre hasn't changed his overall style in the least.  St. Pierre has always spent more time in his fights grappling than he has spent striking.

Lookng at the recent history, St. Pierre did indeed turn his fight against Koscheck into a grappling match, but it wasn't about being gun-shy as much as it was a brilliant strategy.

St. Pierre felt that Koscheck would be uncomfortable fighting off of his back because he was a wrestler.

The rubber match against Hughes was a grappling match for the most part, but there are a few things worth mentioning. First of all, it's worth mentioning that grappling with Hughes was still a great way to disrupt Hughes' game plan, since most people thought that St. Pierre would choose to keep the fight on the feet.

Also, Hughes complicated the striking battle by coming out in a south-paw stance, which St. Pierre had not predicted, so it made sense for him to move on to grappling, where he had made proper preparations.

Against Serra, St. Pierre did use takedowns, but also picked Serra apart on the feet. Using takedowns helped make St. Pierre's striking more effective, because Serra never knew what attack was coming next.

The same thing can be said of St. Pierre's second fight against Penn, because although Penn spent most of the fight on his back, that had less to do with St. Pierre's refusal to strike, and far more to do with Penn's inability to get back to his feet.

The strategies in the Penn and Serra fights were fairly similar, because St. Pierre planned on wearing both down while avoiding getting involved in jiu-jitsu games.  This is far different from the way St. Pierre fought against Alves and Hardy, where St. Pierre actively pursued submissions.

Against Fitch, St. Pierre did use his wrestling, but was actually most successful in the fight with his striking. Despite Fitch's talk that St. Pierre was afraid to strike, St. Pierre easily out-classes Fitch while the fight remained standing.

Against Alves and Hardy, St. Pierre's strategy was far more straightforward, in that St. Pierre truly wished to fight most of the fight on the ground. Hardy and Alves have far weaker skills on the ground, so it made little sense for St. Pierre to do anything but take these fights to the ground.

Considering the specific reasons for his strategies over the last 10 fights, it seems clear to me that while people think that his strategy is always the same, the truth is that while his fights may look similar on initial inspection, the truth is that the strategies are different, and vary depending on the situation and opponent.

What St. Pierre does, is use his skill set in the best way possible in order to win fights, which is what mixed martial arts is all about.

That's why, in my opinion, criticizing St. Pierre on this basis defeats the point of mixed martial arts.

More on that in my next article.

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