Marquardt: Hardy 'In Over His Head' vs. GSP

By Michael David Smith - Lead Blogger

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Wednesday night's episode of UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Hardy goes a bit beyond just the UFC 111 match-up of Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy and gets into the fighters' camps and training partners. The big story is Hardy training with Matt Serra, the last man to beat St. Pierre, but I was also interested in something one of St. Pierre's training partners, Nate Marquardt, said.

Analyzing the Hardy-St. Pierre match-up, Marquardt said the talent gap between the two is so great that at some point in the fight, Hardy is going to get mentally discouraged because he's being so thoroughly dominated physically.

"There is going to be a point in this fight when Hardy realizes he shouldn't be in there with Georges and he is way in over his head," Marquardt says. "That's where the fight is going to turn. And it's going to be all Georges."

That might come across as nothing more than Marquardt talking big about his buddy, but I think there's a lot of truth to this idea: Hardy has never been in the cage with anyone even close to as talented as St. Pierre (Mike Swick is the best opponent Hardy has faced, and St. Pierre is on another level from Swick), and I could see St. Pierre physically overwhelming Hardy so greatly that Hardy starts to look beaten down mentally.

I thought each of St. Pierre's last three opponents -- Jon Fitch, B.J. Penn and Thiago Alves -- started to look beaten down mentally late in their losses to St. Pierre. St. Pierre's dominance does that to people. If it doesn't do that to Hardy, then Hardy is tougher than Marquardt and a lot of other people think.

Read More: ufc 111, Dan Hardy (MMA), Georges St. Pierre (MMA), Nate Marquardt (MMA)

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