MMA Cult (Fighter Apparel)

I’m going out to knock him out. I’m not going out there just to win a boring fight. He may be the type of fighter that comes in with a good game plan fights conservatively and safe. I’m going out reckless abandon and I’m coming to knock him out.

This is a great card. Usually the UFC saves their best cards for the end of the year, but UFC 100 certainly warranted a major stacked lineup of fights and they have one with their 3 main bouts. Some of the undercard fights look pretty swell too as Mark Coleman takes on Stephan Bonnar and Jon Fitch squares off against Paulo Thiago, who is fresh off a big win over Josh Koscheck. Fitch will be looking to avenge his teammate’s defeat, as the fellow American Kickboxing Academy student tangles with Thiago.

The main event pits Brock Lesnar up against Frank Mir. This is a very intriguing battle. Even though Lesnar is the champ, he’s a highly inexperienced fighter. He only has 4 bouts under his belt, and his striking and BJJ is still at a rudimentary level compared to seasoned competitors such as Frank Mir. All that being said when you have such power and athleticism, a gigantic beast of a human like Lesnar is very hard to deal with. Mir could once again catch Lesnar on the ground, or perhaps on the feet, but Lesnar’s excellent wrestling and tenacious ground and pound and aggressive style mixed with amazing power should guide him to victory in this tough to call battle.

When it comes to Georges St. Pierre against Thiago Alves, this is a very interesting fight. I feel Alves has the best style to beat Pierre–a great striker with a solid takedown defense. It’s a 25 minute fight and Alves will be very dangerous for every minute that is spent on the feet. We’ll have to go with Pierre in this fight because he can take down even the best at avoiding wrestling attacks, but Alves is a very dangerous threat.

Michael Bisping against Dan Henderson is a highly anticipated fight too. Both love to strike and are unafraid to go toe to toe with anyone. Henderson was willing to trade with the dangerous Anderson Silva, and is always excited to throwdown with the best of them. The advantage he has, as in most of his fights, is his wrestling. He can dictate where this fight goes. If he wants to strike he can strike, if he wants to take the fight to the mat he can do that too. If he’s in trouble on the feet he can go to plan B and secure a close round by taking to the mat and using ground and pound. That wrestling advantage allowed Hendo to secure a win over Rich Franklin as he was able to accumulate more points with the judges on route to a victory of Franklin.

I’d put my money on Georges St. Pierre against any welterweight right now, but the man who’s going to beat him will have to be a fighter with a solid takedown defence and excellent Muay Thai skills and loads of power. And Thiago Alves fits that profile.

Excellent wrestlers have not been able to solve the GSP conundrum. Jon Fitch, Matt Hughes, Sean Sherk and even former NCAA Division 1 wrestling champion Josh Koscheck could not utilize their wrestling acumen to finish off Georges St. Pierre. Koscheck has an amazing shot that has planted fighter after fighter on their back, but he was not able to use this double and single legs to put Pierre down, alternatively it was GSP taken down Koscheck and beating him at his own bread and butter game–wrestling.

When it comes to BJJ, GSP has shown he can hang with the best in the world as BJ Penn could not take out the champ with Jiu-Jitsu skill. Grease or no grease, GSP showed good defense against GSP, was able to use some good offensive grappling skill and ground and pound to punish the Hawaiin for 4 rounds.

So the best wrestlers and BJJ artists aren’t able to lay a dent in the armor of GSP, so what’s left is the striking game. GSP has some solid striking, but like anyone else he’s not invincible. Matt Serra was able to crack Pierre with a big punch and drop the French-Canadian on route to an upset victory. Since that defeat GSP appears to be reluctant to engage in long stand up battles, but that could also be coupled with the fact that he has been extremely effective on the ground. But against Thiago Alves, he will be taking on a fighter with a solid Muay Thai game, a wealth of power, and a tremendous share of aggressiveness. Alves has a strong mean streak and is extremely hungry to win that welterweight belt. He has a really good takedown defence to boot.

Pierre probably has the ability to put Alves on his back, but every round in this 5 round affair will start on the feet and that’s a very dangerous territory against Alves. His takedown defence also includes some nice knees to the head, which have taken out some of the top welterweights in the game–Matt Hughes and Karo Parisyan. The Armenian Parisyan has never been stopped in the UFC prior to that, and although Parisyan claimed it was a controversial stoppage, he was in some serious trouble after Alves landed that big knee.

The striking game will be the most interesting part of this upcoming battle at UFC 100. Alves could use his hyper-aggressive and highly skilled striking game to take out the champ, or GSP could emerge and show his own striking game and let the world know he is not only not afraid to strike with the best, but he can out-class them in this area as well.

Can’t wait to find out the answer to the question posed by the stand up game between these to welterweight stars.

Kenny “Kenflo” Florian will use the services of Georges St. Pierre in April to prepare for his bout against BJ Penn in the summer. Florian and Penn will duke it out as Penn defends his lightweight title.

Helping out Florian will be a way for the Canadian champion to retaliate against Penn for accusing GSP of cheating in their welterweight title bout. “In a way it bothered me because he said I’m a liar, I’m a cheater, that bothered me a little bit but now it’s over my head”, said Georges St. Pierre on BJ Penn in a recent interview. “And the thing that I can do to piss him off  even more is helping Kenny Florian to kick his ass, and that’s what I’m going to do. Kenny Florian is coming in April and I will help him out as much as I can to beat him up.”

Florian and Penn are expected to square off in late July or early August.

It’s one thing to win a fight against BJ Penn, which is hard enough, but to dominate him the way Georges St. Pierre did last night is an unbelievable accomplishment. Nicknames are thrown around the MMA world haphazardly, but “The Prodigy” is one that is true to its word. So for such a phenom as Penn to be manhandled, out Jiu-Jitsued on the ground, have his guard passed and hammered, and completely taken out to the point where he can barely stand was a shocking event to witness.

While GSP winning would not be a surprising feat, he was slightly favored in the bout. The one-sidedness that took place was a very interesting turn of events in what many felt was an coinflip 50-50 pick’em type of fight. It displayed just how far Pierre has come and how far he can go in this sport. While Penn has always had the vision of emerging as the greatest of all-time, Pierre might be fasttracking on the road to said greatness.

Congrats to GSP for an amazing performance and kudos to BJ Penn for showing incredible heart and fighting out of some terrible situations to keep going and showing the heart of a champion. Even with the loss he still is the UFC lightweight champion.

These two had a 3 round affair in 2006 and Georges St. Pierre topped BJ Penn in a razor close split decision. This time around it will be a 5 round fight for the UFC welterweight title in January. It’s a great way to kick off the new year—two of the top fighters on the planet slugging it out for 170 pound supremacy.  Here’s how it will play out.

Striking

Last time around the first round was a striking battle and BJ Penn came out on top. He busted up Pierre’s nose and was ahead on the score cards for outstriking the Canadian champion. Pierre notes his vision was heavily impaired due to an unintentional digit in his eye early in the bout. He experienced double vision and certainly taking on two BJ Penn’s is a terrifying experience. He settled down later in the fight but the striking edge in the last couple rounds wasn’t extremely obvious. It was an even battle. Nonetheless because of the edge Penn had in the first round and his KO power he has displayed in the feet in the past, in addition to his fearless attitude towards striking, he gets the nod in this area.

Wrestling

The best takedowns and takedown defence at welterweight match up in this fight. GSP has become legendary for his swift shots that have planted exceptional wrestlers such as Jon Fitch, Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, Sean Sherk and even BJ Penn on their back. We would have guessed Koscheck had the better wrestling but when the two matched up in the cage, Pierre was taking down his American competitor and thwarting takedowns from the former NCAA wrestling champ. Penn’s takedown defence is the best at 170. He can with his unhuman flexibility avoid and sprawl out of seemingly unavoidable takedown attempts. Nonetheless Pierre was able to take him down in their bout and his wrestling has gotten ever better now. Pierre can do it again and has the edge.

BJJ

BJ Penn arguably has the best BJJ in the game. He has reached demigod status on the mat and his translated his superb grappling technique perfectly to the MMA game. Pierre is a great BJJ artist himself but the realm BJ Penn has entered into on ground seems untouchable at the moment. If Pierre does take the fight to the ground he will have to fight off submission after submission. I think he’s up for the challenge, but BJ definitely has the edge in this mat war.

Cardio

BJ Penn shook off some of that negative reputation for having suspect cardio when he fought 3 hard rounds against Sean Sherk. We didn’t see him enter into the championship rounds but he should be good to go for 5 hard rounds against Pierre as the Hawaiian has been heavily devoting himself to intense training as of late. Nonetheless while Penn has been questioned in the past when it comes to lasting for the full fight with ample fuel, the same question has never been posed of Pierre. Good to go for 5 rounds whether he is injured, sick, fighting on short notice or whatever the circumstance may be, you can always count on GSP being there and fighting 100 percent for the whole fight. He has a naturally sound cardiovascular system that is only refined further with intense strength and conditioning training. Expect no less this time in what will be his toughest test yet.

The Outcome

This is a tough one to call, as are most great matchups put on in the MMA world. BJ Penn argued after his defeat to GSP the first time that all Pierre did was take him down in the first fight and did no damage. He was basically saying he beat up Pierre in the fight and all GSP did was win on his takedown success. Indeed Pierre’s face did look worse after 15 minutes and Penn did look relatively fresh as a daisy. Nonetheless 2 out of the 3 judges felt GSP outpointed Penn in the battle.

This fight will likely play out the same way. Penn has the better chance to win by finishing his opponent. With his KO power, stellar submission, and killer instinct in the cage, Penn is more dangerous to finish the fight. Pierre has KO power, but Penn has never been knocked out on the feet. Pierre has submissions but Penn is too good to get caught in them. Pierre has ground and pound but he is going to have a tough time finishing Penn with is as the Hawaiian will be attacking of his back with just as much vigor.

All that being said, Pierre is likely to be able to handle himself on the feet just fine and get the fight to the ground. From there he will successfully fight off submissions and pepper Penn with ground and pound for the decision win. That sounds quite similar to the first fight but I feel this is a good indication of how they match up.

Of course it is a different ball game this time around as they are both different fighters since then. It will be about 3 years since they first fought when they meet again in 2009, and there are different motivations this time around.

Penn is looking for revenge. That’s a big factor. A regular BJ Penn is scary, a highly motivated BJ Penn looking for revenge is a nightmare. Not that Pierre is a demure and amiable individual in the Octagon. Outside the cage he’s as friendly as they come but outside it’s quite the opposite. He is vicious, violent and perhaps the most genetically gifted athlete in the game. His motivation is to show he is a true champ that can defend his title against the best.

All these factors on top of the fact we have two of the most dynamic fighters entering into a highly unpredictable sporting event can make for a highly unforeseeable outcome. But until then we’ll go with our best guess scenario for who wins…GSP by decision after 5 action packed rounds.