Recently in GSP Category

MMACanada.net has the pics, bloodyelbow.com is where I found out about them:

Here's a funny little vid on GSP's Superman punch. It's cool to see it in slo-mo, mashing some dude's face. Anyway, thanks to bloodyelbow.com.

from mmaweekly.com:
B.J. Penn is uncertain of what the future holds for his complaint against Georges St. Pierre. He wasn't sure what to expect of his plea to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and after an inconclusive meeting with regulatory body, he is weighing his options.

"Honestly, I didn't know what to expect," he told MMAWeekly.com after the Tuesday meeting. "We didn't even know if we were going to get a chance to talk, but honestly I don't even know exactly what happened yet. I've still got to sit down with the lawyers and see. I don't even know how to judge this or gauge this. I'm a fighter, not a litigator."

The NSAC took no formal action against the subject of Penn's complaint, St. Pierre and cornermen Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson, but Penn felt the meeting might be a positive step in the right direction, even if it wasn't exactly what he had hoped for.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, having grown weary of answering questions related to his immediate past, has turned his attention toward the next formidable challenge placed in his path -- Thiago Alves.

"Thiago Alves, no doubt, is the biggest challenge of my career," St. Pierre told Sherdog.com in an exclusive video interview. "He has done stuff nobody has done before. It's going to be a very, very tough fight."

Alves (16-3) has rattled off seven consecutive wins, the last three against top 10 welterweights Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. Ten of the 25-year-old Brazilian destroyer's 16 career victories have come by knockout or technical knockout, as he has emerged as perhaps the most-feared striker in the welterweight division.

GSP exclusive interviewSt. Pierre (18-2) throttled lightweight titleholder B.J. Penn in their hyped UFC 94 rematch in January and will carry a five-fight winning streak into his next bout. Allegations of "greasing" continue to dog the 27-year-old Canadian in wake of his rout of Penn, which saw him pass the Hawaiian's feared guard with surprising ease en route to a fourth-round TKO. Penn declined to come out of his corner for the fifth round.

"He said I was a quitter," St. Pierre said. "I'm not the one who didn't come back for the fifth round."

Check out Greg Savage's full interview with St. Pierre and watch the welterweight king discuss the Vaseline controversy involving cornermen Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson, along with what direction he thinks Penn should head after the most lopsided loss of his career.

by Loretta Hunt, sherdog.com:
Kenny Florian knew that trash talk would be par for the course gearing up towards a fight with UFC lightweight champion B.J. Penn. However, he didn't quite expect the kick-off he got on Tuesday.

Penn, who's been nursing his wounds since his four-round loss to welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre at UFC 94 on Jan. 31, expressed surprise that Florian planned to train with the French Canadian fighter, claiming that Florian had previously contacted Penn to warn him of St. Pierre's proclivity to "grease up" before fights.

Penn dropped the bombshell statement during his first sit-down video interview since UFC 94 on BJPenn.com.

"That is kind of surprising to me because Kenny is actually the guy who tipped us off that GSP was going to be greasing," said Penn. "He actually e-mailed me and tipped me off."

By Guilherme Cruz, tatame.com

After UFC 94's main event, in which Georges St. Pierre dominated BJ Penn, the Brazilian Thiago "Pitbull" Alves entered the octagon to challenge the Canadian for the welterweight title. While the date of the confrontation isn't defined, the Brazilian is waiting - and training - hungry for the fight of his dreams, and promises a great show.

"It'll be a great fight. I'm very excited, I can't wait... It's going to be great," said the fighter, in conversation with the reporter Cristiane Ripari, after the press conference. "I saw what he did with BJ Penn and I'll have to beat him a lot, do my game", said Thiago, who wasn't expecting such domination over the Hawaiian. "I expected and didn't expected, understood? (laughs). I knew he would win, but not this way. He's much bigger than the BJ, a better athlete, and the sport today, in that level, you have to be the best athlete", said "Pitbull", defining his strategy to the fight against GSP in a sentence: "I'll go there to knock him out".

Find more videos like this on BJPENN.COM

Find more videos like this on BJPENN.COM

Find more videos like this on BJPENN.COM

So on this video, BJ goes through a weight-training regimen, but it also shows a little of what goes on behind the scenes when a fighter trains for a fight, and the people who are helping him work toward that goal. It seems not everyone has the same idea of how to go about doing it.

About 2:40 in, you hear somebody say off-camera, "You guys gotta let us be done - this ain't doing shit for him." And then the camera goes to BJ who says, "There's three guys telling everybody what to do. We gotta stop." Interesting stuff.

All right, things are looking great - at least on paper - in the world of MMA for the rest of the year. Here are just some the major match-ups I've heard about, most confirmed, some still just rumor, but probably will happen:

-- Matt Lindland Vs. Trevor Prangley at Affliction 2 - Day of Reckoning.

-- Jay Hieron vs. Drew Fickett, also at Affliction 2.

-- Jake Shields vs. Paul Daley at EliteXC's Oct. 4 show on CBS.

-- Georges St-Pierre vs. BJ Penn on UFC's Jan. 31 show.

-- Also upcoming on a UFC event is Brock Lesnar vs. Cheick Kongo and Joe Steveson vs. Kenny Florian.

-- Also on the CBS show, Gina Carano vs. Kelly Kobald and Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson vs. Brett Rogers.

-- And finally, another Affliction match-up, former IFL lightweight champion Chris Horodecki vs. Dan Lauzon.

Holy crap! That's a lotta MMA.

-- So Florian beat Huerta. The UFC had said a while back that this fight would be to determine the number one contender to BJ Penn's lightweight belt, but then reportedly backed off from that days before the bout. One could make the connection the souring on the signifcance of the fight was due to Huerta's disparraging comments in FIGHT! magazine, where he doubted their loyalty and said they paid him $50 a day for a promotional tour. So, the question is, now that Florian won, will he get a title shot, or is Dana White's next move going to be to let BJ Penn jump up a weight class to take on welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre?

-- Cheick Kongo (who some call "Cup Check" because of the four or so knees he fired at CroCop's nuggets in their fight) beat Viking Dan Evenson (who was waaay into his entrance music, by the way) ... so where does Kongo go from here? I'm still not too impressed with this guy - Herring gave him problems .. let's see how he does against tougher competition on the ground, like maybe Shane Carwin or Brock Lesnar, or even Frank Mir.

Ok, here's three fights that really impressed me so far this year. The biggest factor I look for is a battle that is evenly fought, where either guy could win it at any time, where it almost boils down to a battle of wills, who's gonna quit first, or who pulls something out of his butt and wins the fight:

-- Jonathan Goulet vs. Kuniyoshi Hironaka at UFC 83

-- Carlos Condit vs. Hirmitsu Miura at WEC 35

-- Forrest Griffin vs. Quinton Jackson at UFC 86

and the latest addition:
-- Georges St-Pierre vs. Jon Fitch at UFC 87

Toward the end of the year, I might add a few more fights and more detailed descriptions of each one (maybe some video too).

Caught a few of the fights on saturday night. Here are some thoughts:

In Lesnar/Herring and St-Pierre/Fitch, we saw the polar opposites of sportsmanship. Lesar thrashed Herring for three rounds. Totally dominated him with wrestling, but didn't seem to know how to put the veteran fighter away, a la jiu-jitsu or ground-n-pound. We did see another vicious one-punch knock-down, like he did to Frank Mir, so people better start fearing his hands.

It was a great victory for Brock. I was happy for him, until he started taunting and laughing at Herring. Before the final bell rang. Nah. That ain't cool.

St-Pierre vs. Fitch went the full 25, and gets my nomination for Fight of the Year, but more on that in a minute. St-Pierre was the first fighter to pass Fitch's guard and also handed Fitch his first loss in the Octagon. Fitch proved to the world he deserved his title shot, absorbing punch after punch, elbow after elbow, takedown after takedown.

After the grueling contest, St-Pierre got down on his knees and shook Fitch's hand. If I were to guess, he was thanking Fitch for giving him the fight of his life. Fitch in turn got down on his knees, knowing that he gave St-Pierre his biggest challenge. He then picked St-Pierre up to display him to the roaring hoard.

That's the way MMA should be. That's what makes it so special. The camaraderie between fighters. There is some unexplainable bond that is forged when you push someone to their physical and mental limits. No matter what happens in the lives from that point on, St-Pierre and Fitch will never forget that night.

BJ Penn, who seems to be making a habit of post-fight cage appearances, materialized and yelled to St-Pierre to make a re-match between the two happen. St-Pierre, in a not-so-enthusiastic repsonse, said he would fight anyone who was worthy. "Eee can't andle my widdum," anyone?

UFC.com has the video of the 87 Seek and Destroy weigh-ins up. Click here to see it.

Thanks to mmajunkie.com:

Champ Georges St. Pierre (170) vs. Jon Fitch (170)
Heath Herring (250) vs. Brock Lesnar (265)
Kenny Florian (155) vs. Roger Huerta (155)
Jason MacDonald (185) vs. Demian Maia (185)
Rob Emerson (155) vs. Manny Gamburyan (155)
Luke Cummo (167) vs. Tamdan McCrory (170)
Dan Evensen (244) vs. Cheick Kongo (235)
Andre Gusmao (205) vs. Jon Jones (205)
Steve Bruno (170) vs. Chris Wilson (170)
Ben Saunders (170) vs. Ryan Thomas (170)