MINNEAPOLIS -- This is why Georges St. Pierre lost that stunning fight last April to Matt Serra, and it is why he will lose a stunning fight again some day. Jon Fitch is why. Fitch explains everything.
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| Georges St. Pierre has no problem against Jon Fitch. (Getty Images) |
Fitch was 17-2, giving him one of the best winning percentages in this treacherous sport. In the last two years he had beaten, and beaten badly, some of the best welterweights in the world. He knocked out thunderous striker Thiago Alves. He submitted black belt Roan Carneiro.
Fitch is bigger than most welterweights, an ex-wrestler who knows how to manipulate his 190-pound frame down to 170 pounds and still fight with no lingering ill effects. Fitch is stronger than most welterweights, so strong that he manhandled Diego Sanchez. After competing at Purdue in college, Fitch is a better wrestler than most of them. With a black belt in jiu-jitsu, he is better at submissions than most of them. And as an added bonus, he's scary tough.
Fitch was the most capable opponent in the world for St. Pierre.
And St. Pierre destroyed him.
If this was a basketball game, it was the United States vs. China. If this was a football game, it was Southern California vs. Akron. But it was an MMA welterweight fight, which means Saturday was just another example of St. Pierre vs. (anybody).
Fitch may be bigger than almost everyone in the 170-pound division, but he was noticeably smaller than St. Pierre. He may be stronger than most everybody else, but St. Pierre threw him around like a pillow. Fitch can wrestle, but St. Pierre trains with the Canadian Olympic wrestling team, and every time Fitch tried to take down St. Pierre he ended up on his own back. Fitch never tried to engage St. Pierre in a test of submissions, because in addition to his physical attributes Fitch is also very smart. And his submission game, black belt be damned, is no match for St. Pierre's submission game.
The result was a 25-minute beatdown, Fitch abusing St. Pierre's fists and feet with his face. This blowout can be quantified in two ways. First, the scorecards. St. Pierre won all five rounds, and he won several of them by the score of 10-8. The three judges' final cards were 50-44, 50-44 and 50-43. That's the kind of lopsided result you expect from a bad undercard matchup, not a championship bout featuring the No. 1 contender.
Second, there were the faces. Fitch's was all but gone.
One of Fitch's eyes was swollen shut. The other was getting there. By the second round, Fitch was bleeding from so many places that, when the reporter next to me on press row asked, "Where's the cut," my response was, "Which one?"
Meanwhile, St. Pierre suffered a scratch. After 25 minutes of trading punches, kicks and knees with the best challenger the UFC could find, St. Pierre had a scratch on his face. It was the kind of scratch I get when I cut my lawn. A tree limb scrapes my forehead. I don't feel it. Don't even know it happened. St. Pierre was the lawnmower Saturday night. Fitch was the grass.
I feel bad for Fitch, who was reduced to rubble, but I also feel bad for St. Pierre, because he's too good for his own good. This is why he lost his first title defense, in the first round, to Serra. St. Pierre was coming off the destruction of all-time great Matt Hughes. Serra didn't belong in the same cage with St. Pierre, but Serra had had the good fortune of winning The Ultimate Fighter reality series when the trophy to the winner was a title shot with the UFC welterweight champion. St. Pierre was that champion, so Serra got his title shot.
