UFC Fight Night 25 Results: Why Can't Georges St-Pierre Finish A Fight?

When Jake Ellenberger knocked out Jake Shields at UFC Fight Night 25, many believe that we were witnessing a future UFC welterweight champion. Not only that, but his impressive knockout brought up questions about the division’s current champion Georges St-Pierre.

St-Pierre has been one of the most dominant champions in the history of the organization and even the entire sport. But unlike Jake Ellenberger who has now finished four of his past five opponents, St-Pierre has recently been labeled as a “non-finisher” by critics who view his style as boring and relatively unimpressive.

So what is it that is causing this superstar champion to be unable to score as many knockout or submission victories as some of the other elite fighters in the organization?

Let’s take a closer look at St-Pierre’s short-comings as a “closer” in the UFC so we can get a better picture.

Doesn’t Possess Great Knockout Power

Despite being one of the most well-rounded fighters in the UFC, no one has ever accused Georges St-Pierre of being a great knockout artist. His precision striking and unbelievable wrestling skills have brought him a long way, but it as been a long time since St-Pierre has scored a legitimate knockout victory.

Sure, he has pummeled opponents with punches, knees and elbows until the referee stepped in to stop him, but St-Pierre has never completely knocked an opponent out, like Ellenberger did to Shields, in the UFC.

Fighting Elite Opponents

One big reason for St-Pierre’s lack of knockouts and submissions has to be, quite simply, the level of competition he is facing. The UFC welterweight division is arguably the deepest division in the company and this is a guy who has been the top 170-pound fighter in the world for the better part of the past five years.

Over the past few years, St-Pierre has fought opponents like Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves, BJ Penn, Jon Fitch and Jake Shields. Those five top-level opponents have only been finished in 12 fights combined if you were to put all of their career losses together.

Dan Hardy Was Freakishly Rubbery

Though he has been finished in two of his three fights since his loss to St-Pierre, Dan Hardy is not anywhere near as easy to submit or knockout as some fans would leave fans to believe.

In 34 career fights, Hardy has only been knocked out once and submitted four times. Not only that, but the way he was able to get out of the numerous crazy positions that GSP had him in was nothing short of extraordinary.

The kimura he had Hardy in looked absolutely awful and would have been the end of 99 fights out of 100. But on that night, Dan Hardy was just good enough to avoid the submission and take the fight the distance.

“I don’t know the meaning of ‘tap’,” Hardy explained to Joe Rogan after the fight. 

He Fights the Smart Fight, Doesn’t Put Himself in Harm’s Way

Though he has not been quite as punishing in his victories as some of the other UFC champions have been in recent years, Georges St-Pierre has been every bit as dominant as any of them.

Whether every fan loves to watch it or not, St-Pierre is very likely the smartest fighter in the sport today. While other fighters often come into their bouts and look to do something specific, St-Pierre comes into every contest with an open mindset that allows himself to control the fight by finding his opponent’s weaknesses both in his training camp and by decision-making in the cage itself.

While other fighters may be looking for a knockout or even a submission, St-Pierre always has one intention—to simply win.

His skills in every aspect of the game make him incredibly difficult to gameplan for, but it is his unbelievable athleticism and conditioning that make him the perfect fighter to be victorious every night.

He DOES Finish Fights

Perhaps the biggest problem with Georges St-Pierre is that his critics just don’t give him credit for what he does do in the cage. It’s true that he’s not the best finisher in MMA, or really anything close to it. He’s not Jose Aldo, he’s not Melvin Guillard, he’s not Shane Carwin and he’s not Jake Ellenberger.

But he is also not Jon Fitch.

Georges St-Pierre does finish fights. In fact, in his career in the Octagon, he has finished his opponent in nearly half of his fights. That’s right, people—only nine of the 17 opponents St-Pierre has fought have made it to a decision with him.

Sure, those numbers aren’t amazing on the surface, but when you consider that he has defeated almost every top welterweight in the history of the sport, including finishing both BJ Penn and Matt Hughes, those numbers are pretty darn good. Certainly they should be good enough to avoid the criticism of being called a non-finisher.

If St-Pierre goes into UFC 137 and defeats Carlos Condit by another decision, the criticism will fall upon him again from members of the media who are always looking to cut down the accomplishments of high-level athletes in any sport. But the truth is that even if he does get his fifth straight decision victory, who are we to complain?

Just about everyone who is a fan of this sport would agree that they watch it to find out who is the best fighter in the world. If we were only interested in seeing a brawl between two unskilled fighters, we would likely skip the UFC altogether and just show up at our local MMA events to cheer on fighters who are brand new to the sport.

But if we are being true fans, we need to get past this belief that every fight needs to be finished by knockout or submission. Sure, those things can make a fight more entertaining, but what’s so wrong with watching an artist like Georges St-Pierre paint a masterpiece every time he steps into the cage by completely outclassing his opponents in every facet of the game?

Right now, Georges St-Pierre is as good as it gets. If fans don’t care about that and just simply want to be entertained by ineffective fighting styles, then perhaps they are watching the wrong sport.