UFC 129 Fight Card: What Jake Shields Must Do to Beat Georges St-Pierre

A Randy Couture he will never be, but Georges St-Pierre has proven in his past five title defenses to be something of a "master strategist."

Everybody since the second bout with Matt Serra has said that they're going to be the man to make GSP look human and take the UFC welterweight title from him at the same time, but so far nobody has.

Maybe this is why many people will look at the headline of this article and respond that Jake Shields' only chance to win the belt is by hoping and praying that the three ringside judges in Toronto's Rogers Centre all have a schoolyard grudge against St-Pierre.

In reality, however, any fighter with a working set of limbs can find a way to win a fight.

Shields is no exception, but fans of GSP will point to Shields' most previous three fights and the bulk of his career, when arguing that Shields is a highly overrated talent who will do enough to control GSP on the ground, yet not take a limb from the champ when given the chance.

That's cool by me, because Greg Jackson and Firas Zahabi have been training Georges for that jiu-jitsu game anyway—they'll know what to expect from Shields in that realm because they've trained GSP to learn to respect that aspect of Shields' game.

That just leaves the overlooked aspect of the challenger's game: the stand-up.

Does it deserve to be overlooked, though?

From what we've seen on UFC Primetime, it looks like a situation where if Shields lands a clean strike, he could hurt GSP pretty badly for the first time since the first fight with Serra.

Nobody is expecting Shields to hurt GSP and go in for the kill, but everyone is expecting this fight to either end with someone tapping or end with a bunch of sleeping spectators.

Of course he can use his jiu-jitsu and his grappling, as that is what brought him to this title fight—we don't have to put it in print for you to know that Shields' jiu-jitsu game and his grappling will come into effect.

Unquestionably, he'll also look to employ some wrestling a la "Uncle Chael" Sonnen, but that is why Shields is here, and that is what we know he's going to do anyway.

What he needs to do to shock the world is the one thing that nobody expects him to do.

Jake Shields must hurt GSP on the feet and pick his moment to kill in order to beat GSP.

If he tries to employ the maneuvers that won him the Strikeforce middleweight belt, helped him keep it and then helped him get the decision in his UFC debut, GSP will see it coming.

Once that happens, it's bye-bye Shields.

So you want to be a UFC champion, Mr. Shields?

Do that one thing that nobody thinks you're capable of doing against the champ in Toronto.