in UFC / MMA Articles

UFC Welterweight Championship

Matt Hughes (-125) vs. Georges St. Pierre (+105)

A compelling rematch of two welterweight superstars. Matt Hughes, the most Dominant welterweight ever, and George St. Pierre, who’s only loss ever came against Hughes two years ago.

Matt Hughes has been muscling his way past his opponents for his entire career. Using his brute strength to manhandle competitors, tiring them out enough to submit them. He uses his amazing wrestling ability to assert his lethal ground and pound of elbows, forearms and punches, his technique is always the same. Win on the mat. I can’t see him deviating from this strategy at all against St. Pierre, he’s gone 41 - 4 – 0 using it!

The only downside to his strategy is that Matt Hughes can and has been submitted. If a fighter is wiry enough and conditioned well enough to withstand his continuous, early onslaught on the ground, weaknesses can be exposed. BJ Penn proved this in their first fight by choking him out, and he almost submitted Matt twice in their second. I believe that Matt Hughes knows this, and in his rematch with BJ Penn, abandoned his strategy of looking for an immediate takedown and chose to stand up and bang with Penn. This was almost his downfall as BJ clearly dominated the striking in the first round, before he got gassed and Matt rolled over him.

St. Pierre comes into this fight with a 12 – 1 – 0 record, and that only “L” coming by way of submission loss to Matt Hughes. In their first bout, a visibly nervous and tight St. Pierre stood in and hung with Matt Hughes for a good 4 minutes, but the brute strength and relentless ground and pound of Matt Hughes finally caused him to make a mistake, and he gave up an easy arm bar. His stand up game kept him in it, but his inexperience defending on his back lost him this fight.

This time around Georges has been training daily with the Canadian National Wrestling Team for the last year in a half. If anything, his confidence on the ground is a lot better than last time. And considering that Matt had a slightly deviating strategy with BJ Penn and seems to think he can bang with a striker, we may be in for a bit of an upset.

I see Matt trying to do much of the same as his previous fights and slam Georges to the mat and get right to the ground and pound. He knows that BJ Penn owned the fight on their feet when he had energy, and he knows that St. Pierre is faster and more accurate of a striker than BJ Penn. Georges is going to try to defend the take down at all costs, but when he gets to the mat he will be able to handle Matt a lot better, don’t look for him being assertive on the ground, but just more comfortable to defend, and get the fight back to his feet. Nobody will dominate, and I cant foresee a KO.

Prediction:

5 round Split decision For Georges St. Pierre

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Catch all the action of UFC 65: Bad Intentions on November 18th on Pay Per View, and place your bets right here at BetUS!

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Darren Cora is a freelance columnist and regular contributor to the BetUS.com Locker room.