Rumors of an eventual clash between UFC kingpins Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva are picking up, as the two fighters head into what will likely be their final title defenses before the dream bout.
Georges St. Pierre, the current UFC Welterweight champion, has completely dominated the division since winning back his title from Matt Serra in April 2008. Title defenses against Jon Fitch, B.J. Penn, Thiago Alves, Dan Hardy and most recently Josh Koscheck have looked like a walk in the park for the machine known as “GSP.”
While the UFC employs anywhere from seven to eight of the top 10 welterweights in the world, the division looks bare due to the complete control that St. Pierre has on top.
The only real fight remaining for St. Pierre, at 170 pounds within the UFC, is against former EliteXC Welterweight champion Jake Shields, which will happen at UFC 129 in April.
Shields has spent much of his recent career fighting at 185 pounds, but he has won 15 straight fights dating back to his last loss in December 2004.
The streak includes wins over a plethora of the world’s top fighters including Yushin Okami, Carlos Condit, Paul Daley, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Robbie Lawler and Dan Henderson. He also won his UFC debut over consensus top-10 welterweight Martin Kampmann in October 2010, albeit in less than spectacular fashion.
Even given Shields’ impressive track record, George St. Pierre remains a massive betting favorite (-600) for the fight. Simply put, odds-makers have determined that St. Pierre is so dominant that even against the man who may be the second best welterweight in the world; he is still a six-to-one favorite.
Just imagine how much of a favorite he’d be against lesser competition.
If the defending champion does what everyone expects him to do to Jake Shields, the UFC welterweight division goes back to looking like an abandoned wasteland, despite being filled with some of the world’s best fighters.
At this point, it seems that the only competition that St. Pierre truly has is if he moves up 15 pounds to fight at the 185 pound middleweight division.
Fellow pound-for-pound king Anderson Silva has been on a similar, perhaps even more dominant run since his UFC debut in June 2006. “The Spider” has utterly deflated the division as the UFC Middleweight champion, leading many to believe that his only real threat to his undefeated UFC record may be in other weight classes.
Silva himself faces perhaps the toughest competition of his career this Saturday, when he defends his title against Vitor Belfort.
According to Dana White’s interview with Fightline.com last week, if Silva and St. Pierre win their next fights, the UFC is planning to move St. Pierre up to 185 pounds. The move would, of course, setup the dream fight between the world’s top two pound-for-pound fighters.
"If (Silva) wins that fight on the fifth, then Georges St-Pierre needs to beat Jake Shields in Toronto," White said. "If that happens, then we're probably going to do that fight. If they both win, that fight makes all the sense in the world."
Even more surprisingly, White also confirmed that if St. Pierre does make the move up to 185 pounds, he will stay at that weight for the foreseeable future.
"Georges St-Pierre said he would move to 185 and stay there, he would stay at that weight and not go back to 170," White said.
If what the UFC President said is true, then we have to assume that St. Pierre will not only make a run at winning the Middleweight title, but that he will also be vacating his Welterweight title.
After all, the UFC can’t afford to have a division where there is not a defending champion.
We’ve seen interim UFC champions in the past when the existing champion is injured but this would be an entirely different set of circumstances. St. Pierre’s move to 185 pounds would be permanent and he would not be returning to defend his title against an interim champion.
Of course, this news must be music to the ears of fellow welterweight contenders such as AKA’s Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves, Matt Hughes, Dan Hardy and B.J. Penn—all of whom have been unable to get their hands on the belt since St. Pierre’s dominance began.
If St. Pierre does make the move to 185 pounds, perhaps the UFC will consider doing what Strikeforce is currently doing with their heavyweight division and create a tournament to determine a new champion (although Strikeforce’s tournament is just to determine a No. 1 contender to face current champion Alistair Overeem).
But before we get ahead of ourselves in looking forward to the dream fight between St. Pierre and Silva, each man must take care of business in their upcoming fights.
At that point, we can really start to look at the historical matchup between the two and what will happen to the UFC welterweight division in the future.
Georges St. Pierre, the current UFC Welterweight champion, has completely dominated the division since winning back his title from Matt Serra in April 2008. Title defenses against Jon Fitch, B.J. Penn, Thiago Alves, Dan Hardy and most recently Josh Koscheck have looked like a walk in the park for the machine known as “GSP.”
While the UFC employs anywhere from seven to eight of the top 10 welterweights in the world, the division looks bare due to the complete control that St. Pierre has on top.The only real fight remaining for St. Pierre, at 170 pounds within the UFC, is against former EliteXC Welterweight champion Jake Shields, which will happen at UFC 129 in April.
Shields has spent much of his recent career fighting at 185 pounds, but he has won 15 straight fights dating back to his last loss in December 2004.
The streak includes wins over a plethora of the world’s top fighters including Yushin Okami, Carlos Condit, Paul Daley, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Robbie Lawler and Dan Henderson. He also won his UFC debut over consensus top-10 welterweight Martin Kampmann in October 2010, albeit in less than spectacular fashion.
Even given Shields’ impressive track record, George St. Pierre remains a massive betting favorite (-600) for the fight. Simply put, odds-makers have determined that St. Pierre is so dominant that even against the man who may be the second best welterweight in the world; he is still a six-to-one favorite.
Just imagine how much of a favorite he’d be against lesser competition.
If the defending champion does what everyone expects him to do to Jake Shields, the UFC welterweight division goes back to looking like an abandoned wasteland, despite being filled with some of the world’s best fighters.
At this point, it seems that the only competition that St. Pierre truly has is if he moves up 15 pounds to fight at the 185 pound middleweight division.
Fellow pound-for-pound king Anderson Silva has been on a similar, perhaps even more dominant run since his UFC debut in June 2006. “The Spider” has utterly deflated the division as the UFC Middleweight champion, leading many to believe that his only real threat to his undefeated UFC record may be in other weight classes.
Silva himself faces perhaps the toughest competition of his career this Saturday, when he defends his title against Vitor Belfort.
According to Dana White’s interview with Fightline.com last week, if Silva and St. Pierre win their next fights, the UFC is planning to move St. Pierre up to 185 pounds. The move would, of course, setup the dream fight between the world’s top two pound-for-pound fighters.
"If (Silva) wins that fight on the fifth, then Georges St-Pierre needs to beat Jake Shields in Toronto," White said. "If that happens, then we're probably going to do that fight. If they both win, that fight makes all the sense in the world."
Even more surprisingly, White also confirmed that if St. Pierre does make the move up to 185 pounds, he will stay at that weight for the foreseeable future.
"Georges St-Pierre said he would move to 185 and stay there, he would stay at that weight and not go back to 170," White said.
If what the UFC President said is true, then we have to assume that St. Pierre will not only make a run at winning the Middleweight title, but that he will also be vacating his Welterweight title.
After all, the UFC can’t afford to have a division where there is not a defending champion.
We’ve seen interim UFC champions in the past when the existing champion is injured but this would be an entirely different set of circumstances. St. Pierre’s move to 185 pounds would be permanent and he would not be returning to defend his title against an interim champion.
Of course, this news must be music to the ears of fellow welterweight contenders such as AKA’s Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves, Matt Hughes, Dan Hardy and B.J. Penn—all of whom have been unable to get their hands on the belt since St. Pierre’s dominance began.
If St. Pierre does make the move to 185 pounds, perhaps the UFC will consider doing what Strikeforce is currently doing with their heavyweight division and create a tournament to determine a new champion (although Strikeforce’s tournament is just to determine a No. 1 contender to face current champion Alistair Overeem).
But before we get ahead of ourselves in looking forward to the dream fight between St. Pierre and Silva, each man must take care of business in their upcoming fights.
At that point, we can really start to look at the historical matchup between the two and what will happen to the UFC welterweight division in the future.
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