MMAFIX

For anyone hemming and hawing about Georges St. Pierre getting all Stone Temple Pilots on his back against B.J. Penn, listen to how he breaks down his UFC 94 fight gameplan to Sports Illustrated:

SI.com: I thought the way you approached the fight, specifically working on B.J. and making blood rush to his shoulders, was really smart.

St. Pierre: B.J. Penn, you were talking about his guard, he has very flexible legs. Another thing is, because he has very flexible hips, it made his thoracic cage more susceptible to being weak. That’s why I was working a lot of elbows to the body. On the ground I was putting my elbow in his stomach to make him tired. And a lot of knees. It was my game plan.

SI.com: The scientific approach that you’ve taken, is that something you developed based on how you’ve seen fights over the years, or does that come from how your trainers approach fights?

St. Pierre: It’s coming from all of us. Not only from one person, it’s coming from me, from Faris Zahabi, from Greg Jackson, from John Danaher and Phil Nurse in New York. We use a very scientific approach all the time. We fight to make the best game plan possible.

SI.com: You found weaknesses in B.J.’s strengths. A lot of people felt his flexibility was a strength, but you found weakness there. Who was the one that first said we can take advantage of that?

St. Pierre: I know a lot of doctors. It’s a fact. When somebody has flexible hips, normally he has a weak thoracic cage. His bones are weaker. It’s science. And with B.J., that’s the case. He has very flexible hips, so his core is weaker than somebody who has normal hips. That’s why I was attacking the body a lot. People, when they fight B.J., they try to hit the head. But B.J. has very thick skin and he moves his head very well and his reaction time is very fast. He can move his head standing up, but his body never moves. I was targeting the body a lot.

This really kicks the shit out of B.J. Penn’s strategy for the fight, which apparently was something like “Let Georges St. Pierre pummel my head until I can’t see straight.”

Read the full SI article here.