When Georges St. Pierre entered the Octagon at UFC 94 a great many people picked him to beat B.J. Penn, but very few thought it would be as one-sided as the fight ended up being. The Canadian champion dominated his way to a TKO stoppage.
After the fourth round ended, St. Pierre went back to his corner one more time to get the gameplan that he hoped would put Penn away once and for all, but Penn's corner signaled the finish and the referee stopped the fight.
"I knew I was in total control of the fight, and when I came back in the corner for the fifth (round) my trainer told me that for the fifth round stay standing up and pick him apart because he had a hard time even standing on his feet. If the fifth would have started, I was going to open up right away standing up and try to finish him in the early fifth round," St. Pierre told MMAWeekly Radio recently.
"He gave up before the fifth round came."
There was much pre-fight hype around this bout and attention paid to Penn's comments towards St. Pierre on the Spike TV series "UFC Primetime" in regards to the welterweight champion's loss to Matt Serra in 2007 in which he tapped out from strikes. Penn repeatedly called his opponent a quitter, and after the fight was over, it was St. Pierre who was standing tall when the Hawaiian could take no more.
"To tell you the truth, because he has said a lot of bad things about me, and he keeps saying a lot of bad things, I'm going to tell you the truth, I felt great about it," St. Pierre commented about the way the fight ended. "For me it's a big satisfaction, because he said I'm a quitter, and I'm not the one who didn't come back for the last round.
"I thought in the beginning it would have been better if I win by a submission or a knockout, but the more I think about it, the more I'm happy about the ending. Because it proved a point for me."
St. Pierre went onto say he actually commended Penn for his decision to stop the fight if he was unable to intelligently continue, and says that no fighter should feel shame if they are forced to tap out.
"If I get caught in an armbar, I prefer to tap and come back stronger the next time than not tapping and even losing the fight and my arm being dislocated, and not having my arm come back at 100 percent," St. Pierre stated.
Before the fight, Penn seemingly went for the throat when commenting about St. Pierre, his camp, and his trainers. Since the fight, the focus has now turned to a dispute about St. Pierre's cornermen and the way they applied Vaseline between rounds. The Canadian champion says he's lost some respect for Penn, but he's moving on to bigger and better things.
"With all the things that have happened, the excuses, all these things, I'm not very happy about it to tell you the truth. I'm mad a little bit," St. Pierre said about Penn. "The thing is, the more I talk about it, the more people will talk about it, the more people will think I'm trying to make an excuse. I'm not the one who tried to say things. I have nothing to hide. I've always been honest. For me, they can say whatever they want. For me, the fight is over now. I look to the future; B.J. is the past.
"I enter a new chapter in my career. I want to go forward, not to go back."
St. Pierre is already back in light workouts and will travel to Colorado soon to help teammate Nate Marquardt prepare for his Feb. 21 fight at UFC 95 against Wilson Gouveia in London, England.
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...=8132&zoneid=2
02-10-2009, 04:34 AM
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