Stop the Superfights

By: James Lynch | Posted: Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm.

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. 

CATEGORIES:Editorial