UFC 129 Results: What Does This Victory Mean for Georges St-Pierre?

In front of 55,000 fans in Toronto, Canada, UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre went to battle with dangerous jiu-jitsu artist Jake Shields at UFC 129. As expected, the crowd booed the challenger and gave a roaring record-breaking cheer and applause for their Canadian hero.

Two comments were being said left and right by many before UFC 129 took place.

First, was that GSP would completely walk through Jake Shields and finish the fight. The other was that Jake Shields would get GSP on the ground, or end up on the ground, and then use his superior grappling and ground game to win.

Unfortunately, neither of these predictions were the outcome of their bout. Georges St-Pierre retained his title after winning via unanimous decision. 

GSP and Shields traded strikes for almost the entirety of the 25 minutes, Shields throwing kicks and punches, while the champion jabbed effectively and threw overhead rights “a-la-Hendo”.

From time to time, Shields would try to get the clinch to then pull guard, but GSP turned out of them and forced Shields away.

Shields was able to cause damage to GSP and effectively weakened his left eye and cut his nose. There were brief moments on the ground, but the match mainly consisted of a punch by GSP, followed by a ducking down evasion from Shields.

Credit must go to Shields for hanging in there with a fighter who is arguably one of the best in the world, and to many, THE best. However, one must look at the facts of the fight.

GSP has again let his fight go all five rounds as he has in FIVE of his last SIX fights. But what does this mean for his rankings?

Obviously, it is helpful to have a win, especially one that is a title defense and against someone who had not lost in six years with a 15-fight winning streak. But critics look at other things.

One dominant argument against GSP is that he does not finish fights. The other is that he plays it safe in order to keep his belt. Whether you believe this or not, it does not help his case to add on another decision victory where the opponent caused more visible damage.

Now improving his record to 22-2, GSP is still one of the greatest. The rankings of the welterweight division do not change much, but as far as the pound-for-pound list goes, GSP adds a little more gasoline to his fire. Not as much as he, and fans and critics alike had hoped, but you cannot ignore he took ownership of the rounds.

The pound-for-pound list is subjective to each individual’s criteria. It may be sheer numbers, or it may be the fashion in which the victories were won. It might be quality of opponents, or if they have changed weight classes at some point and succeeded in a different division.

Regardless, we will see how the many different sites and listings will rank Georges St-Pierre after his win over Jake Shields. On many P4P lists, they have GSP at No. 2 and Jose Aldo at No. 3. With Jose Aldo’s win as well as GSP’s, who knows how these will shift?

In the end, GSP and Jake Shields should both be commended for impressing the MMA world again in their own ways.

As a side note, it would seem that in order to secure a ranking in any list, you should contact Steven Seagal. Brock Lesnar better get a high-impact absorbing mouth guard come UFC 131. Is it too late to add Seagal to UFC personal trainer alongside Greg Jackson and Mark Dellagrotte?!