I keep reading about how poor GSPs striking is because of the Jake Shields fight. I realise that this is due to the bad performance in that area in comparison to how poor Jakes stand up is. I know doubt feel as though this happened because of the severity of the eye poke that GSP endured. Being poked that badly in the eye during a fight is horrendous and would throw even anderson silva for a loop (not comparing GSP striking to Silva, its obvious that Silva is better). Outside of the Jake Shields fight is there another time when the striking prowess of GSP comes into question as being dismal? Personally i dont think so, i think that GSP has great striking and intelligent striking. Good set up skills are essential for his gameplan of control and i think that in his overall game that striking plays a big part and he is fantastic at utilising it as he needs to.
I don't think so either. Haters will use that one mediocre performance to discredit all of Georges' wins. GSP is a basic, but very technical striker. He has solid fundamentals, and that puts him ahead of a lot of strikers that "should" be better than him. His takedowns also help.
GSP's striking prowess has come into question twice- round 1 of the first fight against Penn, and the last two rounds against Shields. The common denominator? Anyone that has to ask is a moron.
i know its crazy that people have to choose "rounds" to really pick apart GSP. and yet take those rounds as though its an entire fight and entire career
He's a bit on the stiff side of it but he's not the worse striker in the division. He's very academic with his jabs and straight right but he doesn't throw a lot of combinations, I can only think of the superman punch + leg kick he throws in every fight. Not a bad striker by any means but not a good one either, what he lacks in fluidity he makes up for it with his insane speed to cover the distance and put his opponent down and this is where he shines.
Back in 2007 GSP was rated by Fight mag as one of the top 10 strikers in mma! He has gotten better in the boxing area since then. I always laugh when people say his striking only looks good because people are scared of the td. Not true his strike is just plaine old good, top of the food chain even.
What is obvious? That Silva got destroyed on the feet by a wrestler for 4 and a half rounds, while GSP IMO hasn't lost a single round in striking since when... BJ 1. Even with the several intentional eye pokes, Shields did nothing to George. I had it 50-45 GSP. He is the best p4p striker in all of the UFC IMO.
How is it that he out-strikes all of his opponents then? "Threat of takedown" doesn't matter, this is MMA, not boxing. He's not stiff, he's conservative. Why? Beacuse he's a wrestler and carries a lot of muscle mass. He can't jump around all over the place like Anderson or Edgar. But you're right, he doesn't throw a lot of combinations. But he doesn't really need to, apparently.
you gotta understand GSP always has that threat of a takedown which usually always leads to him holding people down for an entire round, thus taking better strikers out of their element in a pure striking fight i'd take Thiago Alves, Carlos Condit, Nick Diaz, Dan Hardy, BJ Penn, Martin Kampmann and new to the UFC WW division Robbie Lawler, Nate Marquart, Jordan Mein, and Patrick Cote without that threat of takedown GSP would be demolished by a lot of people in the striking department
How the hell do these keep popping up? The dude is the WW champ and has been dominant for years. He isn't bad at anything and he's way above average at most things, unbelievably good at some.
all you people saying his striking is so amazing, please elaborate? I see him jab, circle, jab, circle, jab, circle wooow amazing striking
Yeah, but we're not talking about pure striking fights. This is MMA. You're allowed to threaten with takedowns to land strikes standing. It's pretty basic, but very technical. And his opponents can't even defend his jab and counter his footwork, so he doesn't need to throw combinations.
