Georges St. Pierre finds himself in what is, at once, both an enviable and unenviable position. On the plus side, he has the rare chance to face a top five pound-for-pound champion in BJ Penn at UFC 94. One can only imagine what beating Penn again would do for his reputation and legacy. On the other hand, he's faced with the prospect of fighting a more focused and better-conditioned Penn who has dominated all three of his opponents since dropping down to lightweight.
But this fight won't be contested at lightweight; it will be at 170 pounds, a weight at which Penn's record is just 2-2, and where has not won a match since 2004. And of course, one of those losses at welterweight came against Georges St. Pierre. Normally, a prior fight between two contestants would provide some obvious insight into how the rematch might go, but this case is different. The first match was so close and the intervening time has seen both fighters improve so much that a more careful analysis of GSP-Penn I is needed.
Using FightMetric statistics from that fight, as well as every other fight in both men's careers, let's take a look at the component pieces of GSP-Penn I and see what the chances are that the second fight will look like the first.
Distance Striking
By moving up to welterweight, Penn faces larger opponents and gives up a significant amount in both height and reach. Against St. Pierre, he'll be three inches shorter and giving up something like seven inches in reach (exact reach data is hard to come by). In the first fight, St. Pierre used that reach advantage to excellent effect with the two tools best leveraged by those with longer reach: jabs and kicks.
For a while, the leg kick was about the only thing working for St. Pierre. In his disastrous first round, more than half of his total strikes landed were leg kicks, which is never a good sign. In all, he beat Penn 14-1 in the leg kick department and used his high kick to land what was probably his best strike of the match. And once you discount the first round, St. Pierre was extremely effective with his jab, landing 16 of 22 attempts, a 73 percent hit rate that is well above his career average.
For Penn, his dominance in the first round is in stark contract to his ineffectiveness at distance for the remainder of the fight: he landed more shots in the first round than in the second and third combined. In total, he landed 28 of 71 strikes at distance, a 39 percent accuracy rate that is well below his career average.
Déjà vu Factor: High
Penn hasn't grown in the last two years, so the reach advantage that St. Pierre used in the second and third rounds is still there to exploit. Look out for more kicks and jabs. On the Penn side, the reach disadvantage mostly eliminates his best weapon of late, his own lead jab. Against Sean Sherk, Penn landed 81 lead jabs, the most ever landed by a fighter in a three-round UFC fight. If he can't find his range on the jab, he'll have to rely on the wild hooks and uppercuts that worked so well in round one but not at all in rounds two and three.
Clinch Striking
In their first fight, St. Pierre controlled positioning for the most part, pressing Penn against the fence for nearly the entire time spent in the clinch. However, this control did not translate into very significant striking. St. Pierre was only able to strike effectively in the third round, when Penn was already exhausted.
Penn's best weapons in the clinch were knees to the body, landing all seven that he attempted. However, most of these were thrown on the way into the clinch. Once Penn was pressed against the fence, he was unable to extricate himself or strike back.
Déjà vu Factor: Moderate
In truth, neither one of these guys are renowned for their clinch fighting. Penn tends to spend his time almost exclusively at distance until he's ready to try and finish on the ground. Meanwhile, St. Pierre rarely stays in the clinch for very long. He almost always uses his position against the fence as a tool for takedowns. Should they clinch, expect a striking stalemate until St. Pierre is ready to attempt his takedowns.
Ground Striking
The first fight did not feature much in the way of heavy ground-and-pound. For one thing, St. Pierre was never able to pass Penn's guard, limiting his ability to strike effectively on the ground. And Penn was on his back for all but five seconds of the time spent on the ground, meaning that none of his strikes were thrown with any semblance of power.
Déjà vu Factor: Low
This marked a severe departure from the normal fighting style of GSP. St. Pierre is a hyperactive guard passer who almost always makes it to at least half-guard, where he can use his elbows and forearms. Still, and even working from Penn's guard he landed 6 of 9 heavy ground strikes, a 66% success rate that is much better than most opponents fare against Penn. The success rate of all other opponents against Penn is just 48%. It would be an upset in itself if St. Pierre did not have greater success with ground striking this time around.
Despite excellent jiu-jitsu, Penn has never been one to work well from off his back. Penn has only gotten one reversal in the 25 times he has been on his back and has only attempted two submissions from bottom position (one of them against St. Pierre). Penn's MO once on his back seems to be to get up as soon as possible. As far as the prospect of Penn striking from top position, that would require doing something that few people have been able to do: takedown or sweep St. Pierre.
Takedowns
In their first fight, St. Pierre landed four of five takedown attempts and Penn landed the only takedown he attempted.
Déjà vu Factor: High
St. Pierre landed four of five takedowns, and as good as an 80% success rate sounds, that's almost exactly what St. Pierre's average is for his career. For his career, GSP has landed 44 of 56 takedowns, or 79%. So St. Pierre was able to do to Penn exactly what he's done to everyone else, despite Penn's vaunted takedown defense.
Interestingly, the fighter who has the greatest takedown success rate against St. Pierre is BJ Penn. Penn succeeded on his only takedown attempt, giving him a 100% success rate. He is the only fighter that St. Pierre has faced that has a perfect success rate, even if it was only on one try.
Positional Improvement
St. Pierre was unable to pass Penn's guard at all. In fact, Penn's guard was so stifling that he was really only able to even attempt a pass just once.
Déjà vu Factor: Moderate
It is extremely significant that St. Pierre was unable to get past Penn's guard, for two reasons. First, St. Pierre has been able to pass guard against nearly every one of his opponents. Jon Fitch had never had his guard passed before meeting St. Pierre. GSP passed Fitch's guard four times.
Second, this is the only fight of Penn's career in which his opponent did not pass his guard and Penn still lost. Every other fight in his career follows the simple formula that any opponent who can pass Penn's guard wins. If not, he loses. The knowledge that St. Pierre can still control and beat Penn even if his usual ground techniques fail him may lead to a more conservative ground attack.
Submissions
The first fight saw a single submission attempt, a perfunctory gogoplata attempt by Penn toward the end of the third round. The attempt never put St. Pierre in any serious danger.
Déjà vu Factor: High
As mentioned before, Penn almost never attempts submissions off his back and it's likely that he'll spend a good portion of the fight from just that position. In addition, St. Pierre's submission defense is good enough that Penn is one of only three opponents to ever latch on a significant submission hold.
As for St. Pierre's chances at landing a submission, that's even less likely. Like St. Pierre, Penn has only faced submission attempts from three opponents. But all but one of the attempts against Penn have been guillotine attempts, a submission that's almost always attempted from the inferior position (with a fighter on his back or pressed against the fence). Given St. Pierre's size and strength advantage, it's not likely that GSP would find himself in a position that would lend itself to this type of submission.
Total
Tallying up the Déjà vu Factors we get three High, two Moderate, and one Low. So how likely is it that this fight will look similar to the first GSP-Penn affair? Seems like the chances are better than not.