(For reference: St. Pierre vs. Serra 1, UFC 69, 4/7/07.)
From an interview with #1 welterweight contender Dan Hardy on Sherdog:
Just to summarize, Dan Hardy‘s plan is to go at GSP swinging, assume he’ll be able to get out from underneath St. Pierre once he’s inevitably taken down, and hope that the welterweight champ suffers another once-in-a-lifetime fluke upset. Dios mio, man. But even though Hardy seems like he’s inviting disaster with his relatively carefree attitude about GSP’s wrestling, he does have a point in that if he does win the fight, it’ll be because he opened up on his feet, and fearlessly threw strikes at St. Pierre. Better fighters than Hardy have gone up against Rush, tried to stop his shot, and failed miserably, so why even bother making that part of your gameplan? Why not just focus on what you’re good at, right?
I get it, but in the aftermath of Serra’s crushing loss to St. Pierre during their rematch at UFC 83, Serra’s first winning strategy seemed like nothing more than a fluke. To stand a chance against GSP, you must somehow deal with those infamous takedowns. Your takedown defense must be airtight, or your defensive/offensive skills off your back must be brilliant. Hoping to box up GSP to a victory without the aforementioned attributes is a long-odds proposition, to say the least. Just because it happened once, doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.


here’s a snapshot into gsp’s class: in the pre-fight smacktalk between koscheck and st pierre, it went like this:
Kos – st pierre has no heart, that’s how i’ll beat him. i have more heart than he does. plus, if the fight isn’t going the way i want it to, i’ll just take him down and use my wrestling. i’m a far better wrestler than him…
GSP – i av no art? well, dat tells me koscheck had a camera in front of im and e had to think of someting to say. since he doesn’t know how e’s gonna beat me or what my weakness are, dat’s de bess e could come up wit for de camera.
well, kos, we all know how everything you said was oh so wrong, and you ended looking like a jerk after that ass whoopin’ he gave you. when hardy meets a similar fate, i’m sure gsp will demonstrate a similar level of class.