FightMetric Takes a Hot and Cold Look at Georges St-Pierre’s UFC 111 Performance

FightMetric released their report for Georges St-Pierre’s dominance over Dan Hardy at UFC 111.  In the victory, St-Pierre reached new highs – and a disturbing low:

While St. Pierre was unable to finish Hardy, the grappling clinic he put on set three new career highs for GSP:

11 takedowns landed (previous high, 10 vs. Alves)
6 submission attempts (previous high, 5 vs. Koscheck)
26 positional improvements (previous high, 14 vs. Miller)

Less impressive was the total number of heavy strikes landed by GSP. After landing a career-high 106 HiPer Strikes against Jon Fitch, St. Pierre’s striking tally has declined in each of his last three fights:

49 vs. Penn (in four rounds)
41 vs. Alves
35 vs. Hardy

If Luke Thomas took the “glass is half-empty view” and Brent Brookhouse the “half-full view“, I guess that leaves the “glass has water in it” view to me.  St-Pierre couldn’t put away an outmatched opponent, but is that really that surprising?  Georges has never shown preternatural one strike power, eliminating any kind of notion that he could put Hardy away toe-to-toe.  And while he has impressive submission victories in the past, he’s no Demian Maia or B.J. Penn either.

If Luke Thomas took the “glass is half-empty view” and Brent Brookhouse the “half-full” view, I guess that leaves the “glass has water in it” view to me.

Brent made the analogy that B.J. Penn is to Manny Pacquiao as Georges St-Pierre is to Floyd Mayweather.  It’s not exactly the most eloquent comparison, but I agree with it in at least one aspect: a dominating win is a dominating win whether it ends in a finish or not.  Mayweather gets flack for his defensive style of boxing, but the fact is that he makes other professional athletes look like children in the ring with him.  The same holds true for St-Pierre.

It’s not as if his opponents don’t know what to expect either.  They know that Georges might stand in front of them for awhile, but it’s just a matter of time before he breaks out the wrasslin’.  Yet, there’s nothing they can do to contain it, let alone stop it completely.