When was GSP's Prime in MMA?

TheAmericanGazelle

TheAmericanGazelle

Black Belt
@Black
Joined
Sep 10, 2016
Messages
6,438
Reaction score
1,776
I know, another prime thread (sorry), but another discussion in another thread made me curious to see what other MMA fans thought on this issue. I don't want to poison the well by saying what I think the answer is, because if other people have a honestly different perspective I'd be fascinated to hear it (truly) and why.

I don't believe I can make a poll, and I know this won't correlate perfectly to how people think, but maybe these options would be good categorizations to start to think about this:

1. GSP Pre-First Title (2002 to 2006, first fight to Hughes 1)
2. GSP Post Serra Loss to Middle of Second Title Reign (2007 to 2010, Kos 1 to Kos 2 about)
3. GSP Back end of second title reign (2011 to 2013, Shields to Hendricks)
4. GSP post comeback (2017 to the present day, Bisping)

Thoughts?
 
He was at the height of his abilities around a decade+ ago when he was winning back the title and making his opponents look like fish out of water. He was more exciting during his initial rise in the UFC, but he was the most dominant in that second era. He started slowing down slightly before he got to Kos 2 though.
 
After winning the belt the second time to 2010ish. After his ACL tear he lost a lot of explosiveness
 
After his loss to Serra. GSP tightened up his game after that and became a lot more strategic...
 
You know, when he went 4 years without losing a single round on judges scorecards?

07'ish to11'ish
 
Probably from the 2nd Hughes fight up until the 2nd Koscheck fight.
 
I think GSP was still in his prime when he beat Bisping. He had several fights where he was severally tested, like the Hendricks fight, but everybody gets tested in a pro fight sooner or later.
 
Pretty much his whole career
 
2007 - 2009. For anyone that wasn't following back then, I recommend watching his fights from those years. He was incredible.
 
GSPs Prime was a long one. It started right after the first loss to Hughes and extended until his final knee tear before Condit.

You can see him getting better each fight during this span, probably peaking early in this span when it came to athleticism but refining his style all the way until he fought Kos.

You can make the argue that the slip began around the Shields fight, because that's the first time I thought he didnt look like both the stronger and faster fighter clearly (he still looked better but he wasnt the bully)
 
It certainly didnt extend until the Hendricks fight, he was noticeably slower and I think sloppier against Bisping.

He is an easy one
 
I think his fight against Alves was when he was at his absolute peak.

At the time, Alves was on a tear and had recently defeated Koscheck and destroyed Hughes.

On paper, it looked like a bad match-up for GSP yet he made the fight look easy.

Whereas neither Hughes nor Kos could impose their wrestling style on Alves, GSP took him down TEN times during their fight.
 
TheAmericanGazelle said:
I know, another prime thread (sorry), but another discussion in another thread made me curious to see what other MMA fans thought on this issue. I don't want to poison the well by saying what I think the answer is, because if other people have a honestly different perspective I'd be fascinated to hear it (truly) and why.

I don't believe I can make a poll, and I know this won't correlate perfectly to how people think, but maybe these options would be good categorizations to start to think about this:

1. GSP Pre-First Title (2002 to 2006, first fight to Hughes 1)
2. GSP Post Serra Loss to Middle of Second Title Reign (2007 to 2010, Kos 1 to Kos 2 about)
3. GSP Back end of second title reign (2011 to 2013, Shields to Hendricks)
4. GSP post comeback (2017 to the present day, Bisping)

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


When was???

I dont think its ended yet
 
id say when he fought juiced up young thiago alves. Pre acl could double leg a fridge from 15 feet away
 
GSP's prime was from Koscheck to Koscheck, so 2007 to 2011. maybe he was still prime for the Shields fight, but Shields is very good at making people look mediocre.

after that he had two ACL surgeries and was no longer prime. took more damage in those last three WW fights than his entire UFC run combined
 
I don’t think he was ever better than he was during the Alves and Fitch fights.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,705
Messages
55,436,161
Members
174,774
Latest member
kilgorevontrouty

Share this page

Back
Top