UFC 129 Fight Card: Does Georges St-Pierre Need to Finish Fights to Be a Winner?
If you know about Georges St-Pierre and his UFC career up until now, you know that he's got arguably the most fluid wrestling game in Mixed Martial Arts today and he's without much doubt one of the sport's most complete fighters ever.
Striking, cardio, takedown ability, takedown defense, grit—he can do it all, and he can do significant damage in a fight without having to even finish them.
That being said, he's been under fire recently for that very reason as well—although he can dominate and decimate someone in twenty-five minutes and earn a lopsided unanimous decision, the desire to come out with a win has seemed to overshadow GSP's desire to finish fights, which is an expectation placed on every champion by the general spectating public.
In a sense, though, does GSP have to be a finisher before people will finally realize that he is more of an exciting fighter than what every spoiled UFC fan has made GSP out to be as far as MMA fighters go?
Without further ado, I'd like to present 10 ways of looking at this case.
Specifically, I'd like to present five reasons why a finish wouldn't hurt GSP, and five reasons why I could live with GSP not finishing a few more fights.
He Doesn't Have to Finish: The Damage Speaks for Itself
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GSP may not have finished a fight by strikes since the last time he faced Matt Serra, but if you look at what he's done in his fights since then, you'll see all the proof you need to know that he doesn't have to finish the actual fight in order to be dominant.
He's done damage to every opponent he's faced since Serra in one form or another, and he's left little doubt about how much damage he's capable of inflicting.
When you can make someone look like hell in four rounds or less without actually finishing them, does it really make a difference how the fight gets stopped at that point?
He Should Finish: Welterweight Isn't Very Striker-Heavy
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When you think about the guys in the 170-lb. division that are in the UFC right now, the division does have guys that have good striking—Chris Lytle, Amir Sadollah and BJ Penn come to mind—but when you look at the division as a whole, the only guys who are straight-up strikers in the division (i.e. the only two guys who could have knocked GSP out and put a glaring third loss on his record) are Thiago Alves and Dan Hardy.
There are guys in the division that have good striking, as I've said before, but until Strikeforce gets absorbed by the UFC, there hardly exist any number of guys who can deliver a powerful KO shot to expose the chin or lack thereof, as the situation may be, of the champ.
That all might change if Jake Shields beats him at UFC 129, but there's no telling whether Shields has rewritten the blueprint for defeating GSP or not.
He Doesn't Have to Finish: GSP's Found a Way to Beat Some Good Ground Guys, Too
3 of 9BJ, Fitch, Serra, Hughes, Koscheck—they all have one thing in common:
They all had good ground games for GSP to worry about.
Now, usually GSP will only be considered the underdog if he's going up against a striker with heavy KO power, but the aforementioned names have been seen as threats to GSP on the ground in their respective bouts with GSP.
They were all threats, but they could do little to threaten GSP's reign once the fight went to the ground.
Dropping Fitch also helped GSP out in their UFC 87 bout, as did jabbing Koscheck to death at UFC 124 and cutting BJ Penn open in their UFC 94 encounter.
The point is, he's gone to the judges against guys who were supposed to dominate him on the ground, and at the end of the fight, it was GSP that dominated.
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He Should Finish: If He Keeps Up with the Decisions, He'll Get Too Predictable
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It's bad enough that GSP already catches flak for going to decision at all, but take into account the way that GSP has gone to decisions.
With the exception of his last fight, he's been able to take all his opponents down with relative ease and dominate them on the ground.
He almost submitted Dan Hardy twice, and of course, I mentioned before what he did at UFC 124, but how much longer can GSP use the strategies that he's implemented in order to win fights, even if they've got a history of resulting in rather dominating decision victories?
Sooner or later, people are going to expect his methods of earning decisions as much as they already expect him to get decisions.
He doesn't have to stop being a cardio machine that can go five rounds, but landing something that leaves someone unconscious for about 10-15 seconds—translated into the MMA language as "that thing you would never expect out of GSP"—might make him seem far less predictable than he's made himself out to be.
He Doesn't Have to Finish: You'll Never Be Able to Predict How GSP Gets Results
5 of 9St-Pierre has a wider arsenal of moves than what you'd like to believe, and he's very adept in his craft to the point that he can pull off something in his game plan that you would have never expected him to pull off when you saw him getting that "boring decision win" on his opponent.
GSP may not always get the finish, and it's certainly frustrating to him that he's been unable to get a finish on his opponents in the fights he's had since winning the belt back from Matt Serra, but he's shown that there's more than one way to dominate a fight for 25 minutes or less in the heat of any fight.
Like it or don't, there's no question as to whether that statement is pure fact. And the best part about it?
He's put forth a highly entertaining effort into his fights every time, and he's always pulled out something that you never saw the last time out.
He Should FInish: An Actual Finish Is More Entertaining Than Going the Distance
6 of 9All it goes to show is that many fans, whether casual or hardcore, will not be satisfied with a win—regardless of how entertaining the actual fight was—unless it involved someone getting their face punched in or kicked in.
Nine times out of 10, they'll be cool if somebody squeals.
A decision?
Unacceptable to most MMA fans, and unless GSP actually shows correct technique in his submission game when it counts or starts looking to decapitate people with his striking, he's going to continue to have his victories written off.
In the mind of most MMA fans, you're not a winner unless you win a fight before the time limit is up.
He Doesn't Have to Finish: He Gives the Fans Their Money's Worth, Finish or Not
7 of 9You have to see Georges in action to understand how a dude who has gone to the judges in four of his past five fights could possibly be entertaining enough to where he gives the fans their money's worth every time he fights.
When he goes to the ground, he's active and he's laying in the shots to his foes, doing damage and working his way towards the victory.
He earns the win and doesn't rely on holding positions in order to get his points on the judges' scorecards.
Now you tell me where the boredom is in that.
He Should Finish: Champions That Finish Are Impressive Champions
8 of 9GSP has been a lot of things since he won the belt back from Matt Serra at UFC 83, but the consensus is that the lack of a finish has made GSP less than impressive as Welterweight Champion.
Most people will point to the fact that many past champions in MMA history and some of the current UFC champions all have in common that their respective title reigns contain an impressive slew of finishes.
GSP hasn't finished anyone since he beat Serra for the belt, and even the one time that was close to a finish during GSP's reign as champion is tarnished by the fact that his opponent's corner threw in the towel.
GSP's only chance to get any respect as a chance is to finish his fights, regardless of how he has to try and get the finish.
If he doesn't, can he call himself a real winner when he "fights to not lose," as many of his haters say?
He Doesn't Have to Finish: He's the Champion, He Just Has to Kick Ass.
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It's real simple: Being the champion means beating your opponent, regardless of the way you have to do it.
If they go out before the end of that fifth five-minute frame, that's a testament to the heart of the challenger, and shouldn't be taken as a revelation of a champion's sudden inability to finish.
Besides, GSP has finished fights before, and it was Santa Claus the Ringside Doctor—not a lack of punching power—that allowed Josh Koscheck to get himself a fifth round.
If he wanted to get himself punched to where he got himself sidelined until a date that's yet to be announced, then more power to him.
Is that GSP's problem?
I should say not.
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