I can't say enough good about Randy Couture, so I'll just say,
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/captain+america/video/xjalz_captainamerica
Anyway, while I was impressed with what St. Pierre was able to accomplish, what truly boggles my mind is how Koscheck approached that fight. First of all, let's put aside all impressions that GSP is primarily a striker: the vast majority of his wins have come by playing the ground and pound game, the wrestler's game. His striking is good, but that's not his game. These two fighters have the same gameplan in fights... Not to play armchair quarterback but the dynamic of this fight, to me, seemed pretty obvious, the guy who scored takedowns, and put his opponent in the positions he didn't want to be in was going to win. St. Pierre knew that coming in, but for some reason Koscheck didn't. Rewatching the fight, one thing becomes obvious: when these guys were on the feet, Koscheck was making little or no attempt to take the fight to the ground. He never shot in for a double leg takedown, not once. His only takedown attempts were the (successful) single he used to stand up out of half guard and the (unsuccessful) single he finally dropped down for in the last two minutes of the fight.
So what did he do? He stood with St. Pierre, tried to play the Diego Sanchez strategy. He honestly seemed to think that he was going to knock out Georges St. Pierre by throwing those very wild and scripted combinations which invariably ended with a big right hand. Now if you've got two good wrestlers, but one of them's not even thinking about the takedown, that guy's just inviting an opportunity to be put on his back. This is to take nothing away from St. Pierre, as I said the guy's wrestling was incredible and he did a great job, he took the first possible opportunity to take down Koscheck shooting off of the inside leg kick, then again shot in when Koscheck was close to the fence, pushing him back into it and neutralizing Koscheck's ability to sprawl back. And needless to say, the way he defended the takedown attempt in the last round was excellent.
Thing is, I just find it disappointing, seeing how well Koscheck did when he was on top, that he wouldn't just try to get off first with takedown attempts, or really go after them at all. He was 1-1 with takedown attempts, and St. Pierre was 2-0. Because St. Pierre went after those takedowns immediately, scored them early in the rounds, he won the fight. If only Kos had done the same, he could have made it a much more competitive fight.
On another note, I'm completely thrilled that Clay Guida was able to notch himself another win last night. The matchmakers have been cruel to him, but he took it to Aurelio and got himself his biggest win to date. Out of the guys that I was picking to win, Randy and he were the one's that really shined. I also called Thales Leites and Frank Mir's wins, but managed to botch every other fight. I mean, I knew I was out on a limb calling Crane over Huerta, but I thought it might happen for me... sadly, to quote a Sherdog commentator, it was like bringing a knife to a gunfight when Crane took sport BJJ to a fight. And it's too bad, too, because if he had shown any ability go for strikes in the dominant position, or to take a punch himself, he had the skill to really do something. When will I learn?
