Georges St. Pierre 83′>
(Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)
Breaking into the U.K. is still a battle, and they’re just starting to dip their toes south of the border, but the UFC’s foray into Canada can now be considered a big, fat, stinking success. Dave Meltzer estimates that UFC 83 brought in as many as 650,000 pay-per-view buys — which would tie it for the third best-selling PPV event in UFC history — on the strength of a record number of Canadian buyers (estimated at about 100,000).
Expect the UFC to return to the Great White North on a recurring basis; and expect those events to be The Traveling Georges St. Pierre Roadshow. You thought Marcus Davis was typecast as “the guy who always fights in the U.K.”? Ho baby. GSP is a true star in Montreal now, and the UFC will be giving the new fans what they want. Now if they can only find a couple of other Canadian fighters to give a marketing push to, because right now they’re stuck with that one guy, and the other one, and what’s-his-face, and the dude with the crazy hair.
Somewhat related: Travis Lutter thinks Matt Serra should be worried about his job security after UFC 83. In an interview with FightHype, he said:
“I would guess Serra will have a similar fate as me if he loses the Matt Hughes fight…I mean, he was in the same locker room with me, Kalib and I think there were five other fighters that shared a locker room with him that night. Usually, the main event guys and the guy that has the belt get the nice locker room and stuff like that and here he is with one of the most crowded locker rooms. It’s really strange. They wanted GSP to get that title back so bad and he is marketable, but so is Serra. Serra is as funny as they come, but I’m sure there is a rhyme and a reason in their eyes behind doing everything; it’s just unfortunate.”
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GSP is just a beast though, and stylewise he is a serious threat to almost any fighter in the world. first up he has great boxing, very smooth excellent kicks and very quick and athletic all around. If that does not give almost anyone problems initially (it wouldnt give anderson silva problems for example) he can take down absolutely anyone. so the only kind of fighter that could be a threat to GSP would be a fighter who has better striking then gsp, superior reach, and is either very dangerous off his back or is extremely squirmy and difficult to hold down once they are on the ground. I honestly think a guy like demian maia if he had better striking could be the answer to gsp if he move up in weight. Marcello garcia could probably do it if he had a kickboxing background as well.