Don’t get me wrong, the epic battle between welterweight kingpin Georges St. Pierre and the BJ Penn was a fight for the ages. Its rare having two competitors, in the prime of their careers engaging in battle to mark supremacy in the UFC history books.  Despite allegations of St Pierres corner using Vaseline on his back in between rounds, its safe to say GSP won this fight convincingly, regardless. This now puts BJ Penn record at 1-3 (or 3-4 if you count the Machida/Gracie fights) when he moves up weight classes. Based on this record, critics will be quick to take him off the pound for pound list. My question is how can this be justified when Penn has dismantled top contenders in his own division? Which brings me to this point, lets stop the madness of titleholders engaging in superfights

Lets say the opposite ensued this past Saturday and BJ Penn was crowned the welterweight champion. Most would assume, Penn would drop back down to 155lbs and defend his title against Kenny Florian. Meanwhile, Thiago Alves who dominated number #1 welterweight contender Josh Koscheck back in October is forced to sit on the sidelines. In other words, having a multiple titleholder would have created a matchmaking nightmare for Joe Silva. But thanks to a GSP’s win, sanity is finally ensued for both the welterweight and lightweight divisions. Florian will most likely meet Penn for the 155lb crown later this year, as will St Pierre defending his title against Alves.

Speaking of that match up, many are completely overlooking Thiago Alves, instead looking ahead to a potential superfight between UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva and Georges St Pierre. Alves shouldn’t be underestimated and could be St Pierre’s toughest test to date. While St Pierre has faced bigger welterweights before and dominated them, he also struggled to finish them (Fitch/Koscheck). In addition, The Pitbull has some of the best muay thai and striking at 170lbs, a rarity in a division full of wrestlers and jujitsu practitioners. If there is one thing we do know, not a single opponent since Matt Serra, has been able to rush and bully GSP with striking.

A fight with Anderson Silva I also think would be a huge mistake for St Pierre. Like I mentioned before, the reason St Pierre has been successful in his last few outings is based on outworking of his opponents due to his size advantage. Its for this reason, I was confident that St Pierre would beat Penn this past weekend, due to sheer size. In facing Silva, GSP not only won’t have size on his side, he’ll also have to deal with a significant reach advantage. Is it also not a slap in the face to Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Dustin Hazlett, Martin Kampann and Carlos Conduct, some of the quality opponents, in an already stacked welterweight division? The Spider, (despite the critics of a weak middleweight division) could still be occupied with rematches against Nate Marquardt and Dan Henderson while fights with Yushin Okami and Micheal Bisping could be intriguing.

Keep in mind, when referring to the word “superfight”, it’s mainly assumed for titleholders. For example, someone like Rich Franklin trying his hand at the 205lbs division is completely logical in avoiding the very awkward Silva vs Franklin III. Although this is within reason, Matt Lindland moving up two weight divisions to take on Fedor Emelianeko in Bodog Fight back in 2006 proved to be unappealing.

Once the whole Elite XC contract fiasco comes to an end, there is no doubt the UFC will insert some of that top talent into their divisions, only adding more interesting matches to future cards. While I understand the organization cashing in on marketable fights, sometimes fighters rise to the occasion and morph into superstars on their own. Look at the performance an unknown 21-year-old Jon Jones put on against Stephan Bonner at UFC 94; I don’t know a single person who isn’t excited to see this guy fight in the near future. While I believe St Pierre/Penn made sense this time, the UFC was lucky that this didn’t blow up in their face.