Vaseline

Hey everybody, look who has a sense of humor!  Responding to renewed Lubrigate allegations, Georges St. Pierre admits that he did cheat, only not by greasing up his body.  Instead, he hired some long-hair to kiss B.J. Penn on his way down to the Octagon and sap all his strength before the fight even started.  That devious French-Canadian.

GSP also insists that his best revenge against B.J. Penn now would be to "'elp Kenny Florian to kick ‘ees ass.”  Or maybe he can just keep Penn tied up in hearings and out of the gym all the way to fight time.  Although judging from how he talks about the outcome of this week’s hearings, it seems as if GSP is under the impression that he won.  I guess that’s kind of true, in the sense that he didn’t lose.  Maybe his legal representatives are giving GSP a simplified account of what happened at the NSAC.  That's probably for the best.  The guy doesn't want to hear all the back and forth.  Just tell him 'we won!' and he'll sleep better.

(If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.)

B.J. Penn brought the big guns to today’s hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.  Not only did the Hawaiian have his lawyer on hand to go over his twenty-page complaint, Penn’s mother, Lorraine Shin, got up and read a statement that, according to MMA Weekly, “accused the Commission of not doing its duty to protect fighters.”

That’s right, Penn brought his mother.  And she was allowed to deliver a statement for some reason.  Apparently someone was worried that this whole greasing scandal thing hadn’t gotten ridiculous enough yet.  Problem solved.

(The greasing heard 'round the world. Photo courtesy of NBC Sports.)

Following repeated arguments from BJ Penn that Georges St. Pierre's cornermen improperly used vaseline during their UFC 94 fight in January, the Nevada State Athletic Commission will meet today in Las Vegas at 9 a.m. PT to discuss what action, if any, should be taken against Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson.

Though Penn wants the fight to be changed to a no-contest, that scenario is unlikely; as NSAC executive director Keith Kizer explained to Sherdog, an MMA bout in Nevada can only be ruled a no-contest after the fact if scorecards were added incorrectly, if a referee or judge was paid off to influence the fight, if the referee misinterpreted a rule that effected the fight's outcome, or if there was the use of non-approved drugs or steroids. Kizer explained that the actual purpose of today's hearing was to prevent controversial greasing situations from happening in the future:

('Don't even come in here with your faulty premises and negative proof fallacies, dude.  Just don't.')

In a response to B.J. Penn’s request for the Nevada State Athletic Commission to investigate Georges St. Pierre’s use of Vaseline in their main event bout at UFC 94, the Jackson camp has fired back with an exhaustive argument refuting any accusation of wrongdoing.  

As reported by Sherdog and the L.A. Times (which has a PDF of the full response), the Jackson camp provided seventeen pages of documents explaining what happened, why it wasn’t an intentional attempt to cheat, and why it had no bearing on Penn getting his ass handed to him.

A statement signed by Greg Jackson and Phil Nurse details the breathing technique used on St. Pierre between rounds and insists that video evidence shows only a “scant amount of Vaseline” ever found its way to GSP’s body.  It also lays out four recommendations for improving the NSAC’s policies to avoid the greasing question in the future, including wiping down fighters before every round and using a “touch test” to see if they are unnaturally greasy.  And of course they conclude by referring to Penn’s griping as “a desperate attempt to protect [Penn’s] reputation and commercial value after being totally dominated by a superior athlete.”

Oh.  Snap.

(Props: BJPenn.com)

As part of his one-man Warren Commission on that unfortunate UFC 94 greasing scandal, BJ Penn has released a highlight video of sorts, intended to prove exactly why Georges St. Pierre is a dirty, rotten, no-good cheater. I don't know if Penn hired the same team responsible for putting together UFC Primetime, but this is a first-class production, all the way. Imagine if Genghis Con was a crybaby bitch who couldn't accept that fact that he got crushed by GSP — this is the kind of video he'd make.

Oh, I kid the proud Hawaiian. To be honest, Penn presents a compelling case, and it does seem mighty suspicious that Sean Sherk, Matt Hughes, and Jason Miller all came up with the same excuse as to why they couldn't handle St. Pierre. As the saying goes, where there's smoke, there's a hot pre-fight bath followed by a baby-oil rubdown. Also, the video's use of "Tom Sawyer" by Rush? A very subtle dig at GSP's Canadianism. Where's your mean, mean pride, Georges?