There is that, yes. Penn has a remarkable amount of raw talent and knows the game as well as any fighter out there, but he’s always seemed to rest on his reputation instead of motivating himself to climb the next mountain. Dana books him into big fights and gives him the benefit of the doubt in scheduling rematches, then BJ shows up listless and unmotivated, pulling off a few great strikes and grappling techniques but rarely fighting hard the whole match. Unfortunately, the UFC is not an exhibition sport.
Unfortunately, you’re right. GSP has gravitated from a kickboxing style that incorporated some grappling into a ground-and-pound style that only incorporates kickboxing when absolutely necessary. He got away with it in Koschek I because Koschek didn’t think GSP had the chutzpah to wrestle with an NCAA champ, so Kos kept looking for GSP’s strikes and got his head handed to him on the ground. This time out, Kos is going to be looking for the takedown from the opening bell. Maybe we’ll see GSP reinvent himself again as a Liddell-type sprawl-and-brawl type; he certainly has the tools to do it.
This is a common misconception. GSP never really had a kickboxing style (his striking comes from kyokushin karate, not kickboxing). He’s always been more of a grappler and ground and pound fighter. I think the misunderstanding originates from his coming out party in the 2nd Matt Hughes fight. He decided to stand up because: A) he got subbed the first time they fought, and B) my grandmother has better standup than Matt Hughes. Georges worked him over on the feet and then knocked him down with a head kick. That was the first time most casual fans really took notice of GSP, so they assume he’s a striker.
As for him being the next Liddell . . . put it this way: at this point in his career, Liddell had 10 KOs. Georges has 0, which after 22 fights starts to raise the question of if he has KO power.
Cisco, I use “kickboxing” to denote what you’d probably call standup, regardless of source discipline. GSP has a third-degree blackbelt in kyokushin karate, but most of the standup technique he used prior to UFC 74 looked more like muay thai.
I’m not sure how you’re placing GSP as a grappler prior to the Koschek fight. He didn’t start training extensively with wrestlers until after the first Hughes fight, and didn’t get his black belt in BJJ until after the second Serra bout. Watch the first Penn fight at UFC 58–GSP clearly wants to make it a kickboxing match, and is very awkward at times on the ground, getting pushed off easily when he mounts Penn because of his poor mount position. He’s grown tremendously as an all-around fighter since then.
To be fair, GSP did try his hand at submission grappling in Abu Dhabi in 2005. He won his first bout, then this happened.
I’m trying to figure out how you can make a case for him being a standup fighter at all, or what he ever did that looked like muay thai. The man has never won a fight on the feet. The reason Georges looks awkward in the first Penn fight is because Penn lit him up on the feet in round 1, and Penn is one of the best ground fighters in the world. Georges won that fight on takedowns, because he had a vastly superior gastank (in fact, a good argument can be made that he didn’t win it at all, but that’s another topic).
That he didn’t get his BJJ blackbelt until beating Serra really says absolutely nothing about whether he’s more of a ground fighter or a standup fighter. Legitimate BJJ blackbelts are notoriously hard to get (especially if you’re not Brazillian), often taking well over a decade. I’m pretty sure - if I remember correctly - he had a blackbelt before that, and then started over and eventually went down to Brazil to do some really high level training before the Serra fight*. Oftentimes, a BJJ instructor will make you accomplish something tangible to get your blackbelt, so the Serra fight was sort of in the right place at the right time, especially because Serra had won their first bout and Georges was nervous about the rematch. For another example: Frank Mir had to beat Tim Sylvia to get his blackbelt, even though he was a very accomplished grappler for years before that fight.
*It’s not unheard of for fighters to give up their blackbelts and start over; Diego Sanchez did this too, when he left Greg Jackson’s camp.
Georges was asked to wrestle for the Canadian national team at the 2008 Olympics. I think he got the invite sometime in 2007. You don’t get a call like that unless you are at an unbelievably high level of grappling.
Also, you kind of brush off the fact that he competed at Abu Dhabi in 2005, but ADCC is no joke. It is every bit as legit as the Olympics. Georges has a world class grappling pedigree, a long list of grappling credentials, and pretty much nothing outside of the 2nd Hughes fight to back up the notion that he’s a striker.
I would say GSP has always been a grappler with good standup for when he needs it. Check out the formula for his pre-UFC fights – take down, ground and pound, submission. Regardless of when he got his blackbelt in the UFC, he was grappling pretty well before that. He was able to take down and beat Karo Parysian in his first UFC fight (no slouch on the ground), outgrapple Mayhem Miller (a blackbelt who was supposed to have the advantage on the ground), repeatedly take down and ground and pound Shawn Sherk (known for his wrestling), and take down and control BJ Penn on the ground in their first fight.
I will disagree with Cisco and say that he has shown the ability to win on his feet when he feels he has the advantage there – aside from Hughes 2, he knocked out Jay Hieron in one of his early UFC fights, and spent a number of rounds successfully kickboxing Fitch, Alves, and Penn. The thing is GSP shows a strong tendency to play the odds – if you can win on the ground, why take a chance with letting a lucky shot hit you on the feet?
As for the 2005 ADCC performance, StusBlus does not mention that the guy he beat in the first round was Otto Olsen, ADCC 2003 runnerup and NCAA wrestling champ who at one point defeated Koscheck in wrestling.
I’m not saying he sucks standing up, and I don’t think I said he can’t win a fight on the feet-- I just said he has never knocked anybody out standing. I almost mentioned the Hieron fight, because that is the closest thing I can think of to a standup victory for Georges, but it was still a ground-and-pound stoppage. My original point was that he’s no Chuck Liddell on the feet by any stretch of the imagination, and that’s not a knock-- as an overall fighter, he’s better than Chuck.
If memory serves correctly, I think Hieron was all on the feet, but I agree with your overall point – at least in this stage of his career, he doesn’t seem to have 1 punch knockout power.
He knocked him down with a punch and finished him with punches on the ground. I wouldn’t call that ground and pound since GSP didn’t shoot in and take him down. That seems the defining criteria between a grappling based victory by strikes and a striking based one.
Fair enough, but it was still ended by strikes on the ground, not the feet. My point was that Chuck’s claim to fame was devastating power in his strikes. Georges’ is speed, accuracy, grappling ability . . . hell, pretty much everything but devastating power in his strikes ;).
OK I skimmed this thread and the arguments won me over into accepting MMA as a real sport. I’m a middle-of-the-road karate practitioner, I always root for the amazing strikers.
With that said, as an American living in Japan (which means probably no PPV access), which fight should I look forward to and how should I look forward to seeing it?
What you might really like is watching some of the career compilations that have been put together of some of the great fighters. Since you like striking, you should check out Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, or Wanderlei Silva. You can download these compilations from a number of sites. I don’t know, is pointing out some MMA file sharing web sites against the rules on this message board?
That is a good way to deal with it – the Memento/Shutter island approach! You are correct of course; I must have misspoke. Cro crop happily retired after winning the Grand Prix.