On Wednesday 4th May 2011, @BasRuttenMMA said: They asked me if GSP lacked killer instinct. You have to understand, for "outside" people its maybe harder to understand, let me try. For sure he plays it safe, this happens most of the time when something bad happened the last time he DIDN'T play it safe. For instance, did he had the killer instinct before he fought Matt Serra? Because if got reckless in that fight, it cost him his fight, from that moment on, you kind of make a decision as a fighter, do I wanna fight like that again? The answer will be NO. So then fighters start to fight more conservative. Now, if that particular fighter had a killer instinct before, it will most of the time come back after a couple of wins. If you look at GSP's record, then you will see that he has 9 victories coming by way of decision. 6 of those were after he lost by KO to Matt Serra, 6 decisions, in 9 fights. One was a TKO over BJ (not a slug fest) and a KO to Serra by way of knee to the body, also, not a slug fest. One was an arm bar that he put on Matt Hughes. In the 13 fights he had before he fought Matt Serra, he lost only one (Hughes, and he revenged that) so 12 wins. From those 12 wins only 3 went a decision, the rest were KO's and submissions. So the Matt Serra fight definitely had impact on him, then again, his competition started to get better as well. There are different kind of fighters, take a guy like Chuck Liddell, he can't turn his killer instinct off, he simply can't, if he could at certain moments, I would still put my money on Chuck. But Chuck is not "wired" like that, he loves to go for the KO, and if that means that he can be KO'd in that process, so be it. And even after he lost 5 of his 6 last fights, and 4 of them by KO, Chuck didn't lose a single fan, why? Because people love fighters like him, finishers, guys who "look for the KO". Other fighters fight more preserved, a counter fighter, they have a few offensive attacks, attacks they will learn before the fight and change each fight, but mostly fight on the mistakes that the opponent makes, capitalize on that mistake, and finish the opponent. GSP is a fighter like that. If there comes an opportunity, he will take it and win a fight. But when he fights a guy who also fights reserved and is a counter fighter (50% of Shields wins are by decision) then you have a match that we saw last weekend, not an exciting one. If that fight comes after a night of super fights, and that's what happened, then it's even worse for the fans, because the "Bar" was set high! Ad to this, that he was fighting in his home town in front of 55,000 people, that will put a lot of pressure on him, pressure in a way that, whatever it takes, he doesn't want to lose in front of that audience! Of course he had a problem as well with his eye, but i could see that he was already "off", BEFORE that happened, he was simply not feeling good in his skin, you could tell. Big sluggish right hand, and a back kick that was off, he had an "off night"! It's very easy to understand, only not for the fans, because they have been spoiled lately with great fights. I KNOW that everybody was screaming at the TV when he kicked Shields in the head, "Follow it up!!!!!!!", that was what happened in our place. But all these factors that I just mentioned were in place, so he didn't follow up. That's why people are talking about Nick Diaz against GSP, because Nick will bring it, that's for sure, so GSP will have more moments where his opponent makes mistakes, and if he uses those moments, then we could have a great fight. Other people will say that he will fight even more reserved because then he will be worried that when he moves, he's gonna get caught. Whatever happens, GSP will have even more pressure on him the next time he fights because now people want to see him "stopping his opponent", and that pressure is not gonna work in favor for George. So, if everybody could chill a little bit, and stay of the message boards with "advice for GSP" coming from fans, who many of them, not even train, I say, give the guy some love, I am sure that will ALWAYS be better, then what happens right now. And don't worry, he knows exactly what happened and went wrong. Also understand that he fights the very top people in the world! Godspeed and party on! Bas

Originally Posted by Machida Karate (Post 1408160) Yeah the best fighters in the world cant afford to have bad nights like that, the eye poke def makes it harder but yeah, i want to see him fight a true top p4p fighter

Originally Posted by morninglightmt (Post 1408164) Jake Shields was the definition of a true top P4P fighter. He was undefeated for 6 years in 2 weight classes and he just beat the former Pride LHW/MW champion/Current Strikeforce LHW champion. He also has wins over current top 10/15 ranked fighters in 2 weight classes, Carlos Condit, Martin Kampmann, Paul Daley, Robbie Lawler and Yushin Okami. unless I'm not understanding what you're getting at....

So, if everybody could chill a little bit, and stay of the message boards with "advice for GSP" coming from fans, who many of them, not even train[

Originally Posted by Squirrelfighter (Post 1408167) GSP is not a counter fighter. He may counter on occassion. But more often than not he enacts an attack-defense situation. And by "enacts" I mean jabs and runs away. GSP was described as a grinder after BJ Penn 2, Alves and Hardy. Now, after Koscheck and Shields, he's proven it. He's actually found a way to stan and grind, rather than stand and bang. While Bas is right, this is just intelligent fighting. There are plenty of other intelligent fighters who aren't afraid to attack. Machida for example. He is the least hit fighter in all of MMA, has gone to decision more times than GSP, and yet he is a more dangerous fighter than GSP. Why? Because while he may not finish his opponents as often, he beats the snot out of them. IMO, GSP has no leg to stand on against Shields (in rounds 1,2, and 3). He claims his eye was injured in round 2, but he didn't pour water on it until between rounds 3 and 4. I've had a cut eyeball, you feel the injury instantly, and its debilitating. Not trying to finish in 4 or 5 is understandable, and its amazing he was even able to fight with that kind of injury. However, in rounds 1, 2 and 3 he didn't even TRY to finish. He didn't try to wear Shields down with aggressive stand up or overwhelming pressure. He bounced around like a jackrabbit and jabbed, just like he did against Koscheck. He's the stand up equivelant of a grinder. And I have no respect for a man who's afraid to finish because he's afraid of something that happened 4 years ago.

So what I'm reading, correct me if I'm wrong of course but it sounds like you don't respect GSP. I'm gonna take that with a grain of salt as I think you're trying to be more dramatic than realistic.

GSP has dominated Jake Shields, BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, Dan Hardy, Sean Sherk, Thiago Alves, Matt Serra, Mayhem and the list goes on. List to me how many times he has been in any form of trouble in any of these fights?

Shields? Never once in trouble for 1 second of that fight.
Fitch? Ditto
Hardy? Ditto
Alves? Ditto
Serra 2? Ditto
BJ 2? Ditto
Hughes 2 & 3? Ditto
Koscheck 1 & 2? Ditto

You have to go back to his loss to Matt Serra, loss to Matt Hughes and close decision over BJ to find any times where GSP was in any sort of trouble.

His loss to Serra was admittedly arrogance and Serra made him pay for it. He realized that someone could actually hit him hard enough to give him the TKO. BJ busted him up pretty bad in their first fight and he made adjustments for their 2nd fight so that didn't happen again. Hughes submitted him in his first title shot and he made adjustments to keep himself out of that position again.

We're not talking about an undefeated fighter who is protecting his record, we're talking about a guy who has learned from his mistakes and has vowed to not make that mistake again. You have to credit a guy for making a gameplan and sticking to it. Most of us would go out there with a gameplan and as soon as someone cracked us with a good shot we'd go into survival/brawl mode, its a natural human reaction.

Bas pointed out that GSP did look sluggish from the start but whatever he made it work. Everyone that has faught before knows what those days/fights feel like, its a very helpless feeling to not have you jump or energy level that you expect and are used to. The only reason I wish GSP would be finishing guys more often is to shut up the haters on the forums and in the crowd. I'm perfectly happen watching him completely neutralize Jake Shields' ground game, Dan Hardy's striking game, etc. That's coming from a Floyd Mayweather, Bernard Hopkins fan so you can/should take my opinion with a grain of salt as well.