On March 4, 2006, the world watched as two twenty-something welterweights tested their mettle inside the Octagon in what many thought was a contest to determine who would dominate the division for the next several years.
Georges St. Pierre, the then-universally regarded heir apparent to the 170-pound kingdom, faced former champion B.J. Penn. The fight lived up to expectations as the pair waged a memorable three-round war. In the end, St-Pierre’s ability to take the fight to the mat and maintain top position was enough to squeak out the narrowest of split decisions, one that many fans and pundits vigorously disputed.
The stage was set for an immediate rematch, if not an Ali-Frazier three-fight series. But a rematch wasn’t in the cards – not in the short term anyway. Penn, despite the loss, replaced an injured GSP in an unsuccessful title challenge against then-champion Matt Hughes at UFC 63. Two months later, GSP fulfilled his destiny by taking the title away from Hughes in a one-sided thrashing at UFC 65.
Still, fans wanted closure. With GSP ruling the division and Penn featured as coach on the hit reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, a rematch seemed natural for late 2007. But Matt Serra threw a wrench into those plans by dethroning GSP last April, in what must be considered the upset of the year.
While the rest of the world focused on GSP and Penn as the 170-pound kingpins, another man was hard at work building his welterweight resume in an attempt to add his name to the mix. Josh Koscheck won five straight UFC fights between the time GSP and Penn squared off in early 2006 and Serra’s dramatic upset victory last April, culminating with a dominating, albeit conservative, win over previously unbeaten division darling Diego Sanchez.
Koscheck wants desperately to not only win the welterweight crown but also to dominate the division like future Hall of Fame fighter Matt Hughes. He believes that he is the best in the world, and Kos is ready to step up and prove it by facing the very best that the division has to offer.
Tonight, he will get that chance, as the AKA standout faces St-Pierre in a fight that may very well establish a new division heir apparent.
Then again, it may reestablish GSP as the man to beat, and the clear next-in-line to challenge the winner of Serra-Hughes for UFC gold.
Let’s break it down.
Koscheck’s wrestling pedigree speaks for itself – former undefeated NCAA National Champion and four-time Division I All American at Edinboro University. Everyone knows about his vaunted takedown skills and his ground-and-pound game.
Nevertheless, this isn’t GSP’s first rodeo against a big-time wrestler. At UFC 54, he faced Frank Trigg, a highly skilled wrestler in his own right, and basically fought the perfect fight.
GSP used his height and length advantage to keep Trigg on the end of very sharp, straight punches, effectively forcing the former collegiate wrestler to attempt a sloppy takedown from well outside the optimal double-leg shot range. GSP used his tremendous reflexes and refined takedown defense to easily shuck Trigg’s attempt and then take down the skilled wrestler.
Once on the ground, GSP used good solid position with his hips to control the top position and dominated the action with a vicious ground-and-pound assault. Trigg simply had no answers from his back, and he soon succumbed to the beating by giving up his back and getting choked out.
The fight lasted less than five minutes.
GSP proved that his win wasn’t a fluke when he basically followed the exact same game plan against another dominant wrestler, Sean Sherk. And he did it again two fights later in his win over undoubtedly the greatest 170-pound UFC combatant in history –Hughes.
Three dominant wrestlers. Three lopsided wins inside the distance. There is little doubt that GSP will attempt to employ the exact same game plan against Kos on Saturday night.
In other words, he will look to establish the jab early in an attempt to keep Kos off balance, thereby causing the world class wrestler to shoot from outside the safe zone. GSP will then attempt to turn the tide by putting Kos on his back for the first time in his career, thus asking him the one question that no wrestler turned mixed martial artist wants to answer:
Can he fight effectively from his back – a position that wrestlers like Kos spend their whole lives training to avoid?
GSP certainly wants to find out because that gives him the best chance at winning.
Kos has jaw-dropping wrestling skills. So if he decides to bring the fight to the ground, the odds of GSP defending the takedown for more than a few fleeting moments seems unlikely, at best.
Yet, as Kos found out against Sanchez, merely taking a guy down is not always the way to win a fight. It may actually prove to be a major mistake if GSP is able to exploit a flaw that Kos has yet to completely shake.
After taking down Sanchez in his last fight, Kos quickly worked to pass his guard. He pushed down on Sanchez’s knee and prepared to move to half guard. But instead of remaining conservative and methodical, Kos tried to jump into side mount, something he has done successfully in the past.
Sanchez quickly exploited the mistake by using Kos’s temporary lapse of balance to seep him and snake around to his back. Kos may have dominated the fight against Sanchez. But for those 10 seconds or so where Sanchez had his back, Kos was in very real trouble.
Again, Kos will take down GSP at some point in the fight. He would be well served to pound away inside GSP’s guard, but that isn’t likely going to happen. Kos will want to end the fight, so he will almost surely look to pass in that situation. GSP needs to anticipate Kos trying to jump into side mount and be prepared to sweep the AKA fighter so that he can bring the ruckus from the top position – again, the best position for him to win the fight.
Koscheck is rapidly becoming a well rounded mixed martial artist, rather than a wrestler who competes in the UFC. In his last fight, he only attempted a single takedown against Sanchez – something he completed with relative ease. He opted instead to stand and box for over 14 minutes of a 15-minute fight, something very few predicted.
Granted, his decision to keep the fight on the feet was due to the fact that Sanchez has tremendous sweeps and black belt level jiu-jitsu. So it made sense for Kos to fight him where he was weakest.
GSP is far, far from a weak standup fighter. He would greatly prefer it if Kos came out hell bent on making the affair a kickboxing contest. GSP would accept that invitation any day of the week and twice on Sundays because he knows without question that he has the advantage in that situation.
But GSP also knows with equal certainty that he will struggle in the bout if Kos truly commits to taking him down and keeping him there. He has a decent enough defensive guard, but he isn’t the kind of fighter who is going to pull out a slick submission win from his back, a la Sanchez, Nick Diaz or Matt Serra. And he certainly isn’t going to have the same sort of success defending Koscheck’s takedown attempts that he enjoyed against Trigg, Sherk and Hughes. Those guys are good enough wrestlers, but they each fall well short of Kos in both takedowns and overall wrestling skills.
If Kos remains committed to the takedown throughout the fight and avoids telegraphing his shots, things should go very well for him tonight.
The greatest thing about being a dominant wrestler is that it opens up lots of opportunities to land scud missiles on the feet.
Watch Randy Couture versus Tim Sylvia again. While Couture is a serviceable standup fighter, he certainly isn’t a danger on the feet. Yet, he blasted Sylvia again and again with huge right hands. Why? The answer is a simple one: Sylvia was so preoccupied with defending the takedown that he wasn’t focused on avoiding right hands. When Couture’s big strikes forced Sylvia to focus on defending against right hands, Couture took him down.
Couture’s game plan was so effective that it rendered Sylvia virtually passive for the rest of the fight, basically allowing Couture to completely dominate the action.
Kos can do the same thing against GSP.
If he comes out and shoots right away, GSP will mostly likely be prepared to sprawl and brawl. And a few stuffed takedown attempts could play on Kos’s psyche. By contrast, if he comes out and fakes a shot and follows that up with one of those wicked overhand rights, Kos will, at the very least, confuse GSP, opening the door for easier takedown opportunities. At best, he will win by knockout.
Saturday’s bout is a major fight to help sort out the power structure of the UFC welterweight division. Is Georges St-Pierre ready to resume is title reign? Is this the era of Josh Koscheck?
Styles make fights, and this one seems to favor Koscheck, but anything can happen once the cage door closes.
Originally published on UFC.com.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
UFC 74 Preview: GSP-Kos
Posted by Benjamin Zeidler at 12:32 PM
Tags: Georges St. Pierre, Josh Koscheck, UFC
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment