GSP to 155?: 5 Reasons Georges St-Pierre Could Clean out Lightweight Division

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has been long-linked to an eventual super-fight with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. The two legends have completely dominated their divisions for the past handful of years and it has now gotten to the point that each division is practically out of realistic challengers for the dominant champions.

However while many fans look forward to St-Pierre making the move up from 170 to 185, there was recently information provided from his camp that he might decide to move down in weight to 155 instead.

Certainly this would be a bit anti-climatic, but given his physical stature, a move down to 155 might actually be better on St-Pierre than a move up to 185 where he’d need to add a ton of muscle-mass to even be near his opponents in size.

He has cleaned out the cabinets in the welterweight division and now he may be setting his sights on doing it in a second weight-class. The lightweight division is arguably the most competitive in the company, but St-Pierre is just way too dominant to believe that he wouldn’t completely run through 155 as well.

These five reasons, among others, support the idea that GSP could join Randy Couture and BJ Penn as the third multi-division UFC champion.

Size Advantage

Everyone steps onto the scale at about the same weight, but it’s the amount of weight that these guys cut that can create a very significant difference in size during the actual fight itself.

Judging by the physique that he carries into his fights, it would seem on the surface that Georges St-Pierre is one of the largest welterweights in the world. However the truth is that he is not only not a large welterweight, he might even be a bit below average-sized.

However, if he is able to successfully make the cut to 155, as his trainer claims he can, a size disadvantage suddenly becomes a significant size advantage.

Boxing

There are some great boxers in the UFC lightweight division, but any top-level boxer will tell you that a precise jab is the building block for a nearly unstoppable boxing game...and there may not be a better jab in all of MMA than the one possessed by Georges St-Pierre.

Given the reach advantage that St-Pierre would have over most of the division, his jab would be even better than it is at 170-pounds. He doesn’t end fights with his boxing, but almost all of St-Pierre’s game is setup by the jab. 

Wrestling

In a division with wrestlers like Gray Maynard, Ben Henderson, Clay Guida and Frankie Edgar, it’s hard to believe that someone else could step in and immediately be in consideration for being the best of them all in that category.

But Georges St-Pierre isn’t like most fighters.

Unlike most MMA fighters, GSP never wrestled in high school. He didn’t begin learning about that aspect of his game until well after most fighters have already practically mastered it (if they’re ever going to learn it at all). Now years later, St-Pierre is considered by many to be the best wrestler in the welterweight division.

He may not have the pedigree of some of these other wrestlers, but GSP would at least be able to match up with the top wrestlers in the division. And with the lesser-skilled wrestlers, it could be an absolute nightmare to stop a takedown from a larger, stronger Georges St-Pierre.

Punching Power of 155-Pound Opponents

Many believe that the book on Georges St-Pierre was written when he lost his UFC welterweight championship to Matt Serra at UFC 69. After dominating the division using his superior technique, GSP got caught by some seemingly wild punches from the former The Ultimate Fighter winner, Serra, who eventually finished the fight midway through the first round.

St-Pierre has been considered the favorite to win every fight since that night, even the rematch with Serra, but it has been with the caveat that he “could get clipped,” especially against some of the powerful strikers in the welterweight division.

At 155-pounds, though, there just aren’t anywhere near as many fighters who possess big-time punching power. Of course, that’s not the only thing that matters for knockouts, but it would certainly be to St-Pierre’s advantage that there are significantly fewer fighters who are likely to knock him out in the lightweight division. 

Amazing Game-Planning

No one denies that Georges St-Pierre is one of, if not the best athlete in all of MMA. His intensity, flexibility and well-rounded skills are unmatched, but the thing that may be the best aspect of his game might actually be something that he alone doesn’t even control.

Former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Randy Couture is highly regarded as one of the best game-planners in the history of the sport, but he might have been surpassed by Greg Jackson and the trainers at Jackson’s Submission Fighting. These brilliant MMA minds have helped St-Pierre utilize his strengths while exploiting the weaknesses in his opponents, even taking advantage of previously unseen wrestling inefficiencies from top-level wrestlers like Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch.

A drop to 155-pounds would be a new adventure for perhaps the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world, but the one thing that would remain the same is that he would come into every fight with the same great pre-fight analysis that he always does.

Until someone finds a real hole in GSP’s game, we’re going to see him as the welterweight champion for a long, long time...and he could do it as a lightweight, too, if he ever decides that he’s bored of dominating at 170.