At UFC 100, Georges St. Pierre solidified himself as pound-for-pound king
Published by Zach Arnold on July 13th, 2009 in Current Events

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On a night where Brock Lesnar threatened to jump on top of his wife and “Dirty” Dan Henderson was admitting that it felt great to punch a downed opponent, it was the ever-dignified and classy Georges St. Pierre that raised the bar with his terrific performance against the dangerous Thiago Alves at UFC 100. St. Pierre is a professional in every sense of the word – best dressed fighter, charismatic, congenial, humble, and simply put one of if not the greatest fighters in MMA today. Given the level of competition he has faced recently, it is safe to say that St. Pierre shares the crown of pound-for-pound champion with Fedor. Go ahead, don’t be ashamed to say it.

St. Pierre faced a very hungry, very tenacious opponent in Thiago Alves on Saturday night and managed to take him down 10 times in five rounds. It was remarkable in seeing how St. Pierre took down a fighter whose best skill is… takedown defense. Not only did St. Pierre take Alves down, he punished him and broke his spirit. Going into the fight, Alves said that St. Pierre liked to attack his opponents and break their spirit, crush it, and dominate them at their best skill. This fight was no different in that respect.

Even Dana White was left speechless.

“I don’t know, I mean, Thiago was the biggest challenge, I’ve been saying that, the biggest threat to his title and he dominated him 100% absolutely dominated him,” White told Mike Straka of Fox News. “I don’t know, I’ve got to figure it out.”

I hope he figures out a better opponent than Jon Fitch.

“Yeah, well, you know there’s always going to be guys to challenge. You know, Fitch is fighting again tonight, I know Fitch is chomping at the bit to get that shot again, you know, I don’t know off the top of my head.”

There’s nobody really left for St. Pierre at Welterweight. Jake Shields is the only name that comes to mind and he’s with Strikeforce. Mike Swick recently said in an interview that he would probably face the winner of Matt Hughes vs. Martin Kampmann. Fitch already lost to St. Pierre in a one-sided beatdown. It’s slim pickings for a while.

Which may be a good thing because St. Pierre tore his groin during the fight with Alves… and still dominated rounds four and five. It hurt me just to write that he tore his groin. Not exactly a daily injury you get working in the office.

“At one point I pulled my groin and I remember at one point I was on my back I couldn’t do nothing from the guard it could have been a very bad night for me,” St. Pierre said in an official UFC post-fight media interview. “I was a little bit disappointed I would have as an athlete you know it’s not good to win by decision you always want to go for the finish but I’m glad that I win because I hurt myself bad and I’m in real pain.”

St. Pierre was incredible in his performance against Alves. Thiago Alves is not overrated and he’s not a slouch, either, but the champion thoroughly dominated him in every aspect of the game. GSP treated Alves like Urijah Faber treated Jens Pulver last year in WEC, it was that much of a one-sided performance. How did GSP manage to beat Alves at his own game?

“I’ve wrestle with some of the best wrestlers in the world, you know. I don’t consider myself a good wrestler as a matter of fact but for a Mixed Martial Arts fighter I have a good timing and I do well. I just I hit the takedown at the good moment I was an opportunist. My plan was to stay on the outside because I have a longer reach than him and I know he is very good to counterattack with his left hook so I wanted to stay all the way on the outside and make him commit himself and when he commit himself with too much aggressivity I put him down.”

It was sad and kind of depressing to watch backstage footage of Thiago Alves walking back to his locker room. He and his team were on their way backstage and the cameras focused on Alves’ face, which was a mess. He looked really down on himself and was about to let his emotions flow when someone tried to speak words of encouragement in Portuguese and build his confident back up. Then, as Alves looked despondent, Chuck Liddell showed up and kissed Alves on the side of the head. Liddell didn’t have to do that, but his loyalty and friendship to American Top Team was admirable to see.

Meanwhile, the visual that everyone saw at the post-fight press conference of St. Pierre was a man with a big gold belt and a damn good suit.

“It’s pretty bad. I’m in real bad pain,” echoed GSP at the conference table. “It happened in the third round and I think I tore it, I don’t remember exactly but I think it’s when I was on the bottom in my guard at the third round Thiago pushed my knee down and I hear my groin, my abductor snap and I heard a noise and it was pretty bad, so I was like thinking I was “Oh my God, the fight is not even over and I’m on the bottom, you know,” so I couldn’t do much from there. Normally I would have tried an armbar and stuff like that, so I end up scrambling, getting up and winning the fight but right now I mean it’s pulled, I don’t know how long it’s going to take me, a couple of week, it’s not the first time it happened and what happened to it is my fight was supposed to be the fourth on the card and they call us a little bit at the last minute because of the PPV so we got called and I didn’t really have much time to warm up as much as I should have done and what it’s my mistake too you know I’m a professional, I’m a world champion, I should have been ready and for something like that I just I was not informed that I was jumping into before I was that I was supposed to so that’s probably why this thing happened too.”

On the PPV telecast, you could hear St. Pierre say that he suffered a groin injury. St. Pierre recreated those in-between-round corner moments for the media that didn’t listen to the audio on the PPV telecast.

“I don’t know, it was pretty crazy what was going through my head. I came back in my corner and some people are going to see on TV, they’re going to laugh because I come back in the corner and I told my trainer I said, “I pulled my abductor,” and my trainer Greg Jackson said to me said, “I don’t care! Hit him with it! So I’m like, oh, OK, we’ll I guess I have to go back and finish the fight, that’s the game plan so I just I fought on it but with the adrenaline it’s not so bad, you know. When I, now it’s getting really bad, it’s really painful right now.”

When asked about whether or not he would fight Anderson Silva or jump up to Middleweight, St. Pierre seemed to pour cold water on the idea and for good reason. He feels comfortable as the king of 170 pounds and it’s not his role to develop new challengers. He’s beaten everyone he has faced. So what’s next for the champion?

“I want to fight, I want to face the best guy, you know? And right now I don’t know, I’m in really bad pain and you know I’m going to take I’m going to step back, take a look at it, and we’ll talk about it and maybe in a couple of weeks we’ll see.”