Is GSP the GOAT after UFC 167?

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In sports, when it comes to the title of the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time), the debates are endless and usually involve two legends, or, very rarely, a few more. For example, in the King of Sports globally – soccer – the eternal debate is Pele vs Diego Maradona, and only recently have the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Lionel Messi invaded the rankings.

Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona looks on during the La Liga game be

Same goes with Roger Federer and Pete Sampras in tennis, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus in golf, Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna in Formula 1 Racing, and so on and so forth. In some cases, the title of the GOAT is automatically considered conquered by some phenomenal athlete due to his incredible dominance, achievements, and reign – such as Alexander Karelin in wrestling, Michael Jordan in basketball, Wayne Gretzky in hockey, and Michael Phelps in swimming. However that’s not the case in MMA. In this sport it’s the “Rule of Two” with Fedor Emelianenko having a slight edge over Anderson Silva in the battle of the GOAT. However, all this might have changed after GSP’s victory at Saturday’s UFC 167 main event.

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Georges St-Pierre, even though he’s already considered the best ever by a small minority of fans, gained way more supporters on Saturday in his quest to be the GOAT. All he had to do really was to win – and he did.

Fedor Emelianenko is widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time, and truth is that he was truly unstoppable during his prime. However, the end of his career wasn’t exactly the one he was probably dreaming of. Anderson Silva, who had an incredible reign in the middleweight division and broke several records, has defeats on his résumé by four really lesser-known fighters, while his recent embarrassing KO loss to someone as green as Chris Weidman doesn’t help his case much either.

GSP, on the other hand, has kept winning and winning all these years, meriting more and more admiration from the fans and MMA analysts. With his latest victory at UFC 167, he broke a series of records, and even his harshest critics, who accuse him of being a boring fighter, had to reconsider a few things.

So when it comes to numbers, his victory on Saturday means:

  1. GSP automatically became the fighter with the most wins ever (19) in the history of UFC, having been tied until now with former welterweight king Matt Hughes at 18 each.
  2. He now has the most title-fight victories with 12, since the French-Canadian champion was currently locked in a tie with Anderson Silva. Both had 11 victorious title bouts, but not anymore.
  3. With his Saturday bout against Hendricks, GSP surpassed B.J. Penn’s record for total fight time in the octagon.
  4. Last but most important in our opinion (and not only ours), with this victory GSP managed something that none of the ultimate greats such as Fedor, Anderson Silva, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell managed to do. With his win over Hendricks, GSP can now make the prestigious claim that he has handled the best of three generations of fighters, going back to the days when he was beating the likes of Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk and Matt Hughes, continuing with fighters such as Josh Koscheck, Jake Shields and Nick Diaz, and then his narrow decision over the new breed of MMA fighter in Johny Hendricks.

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As one can easily understand, GSP’s victory over Hendricks means that UFC and MMA history books should now be rewritten, and that’s an undeniable fact that even his most poisonous critics cannot doubt.

As for the crybabies who are still hating on GSP, and claim that Hendricks was robbed of the victorious decision, you know you are lying to yourselves. You know that Hendricks CLEARLY tapped in the first round. So if anyone was robbed in that fight, it was GSP, who was robbed of a victory by submission in the first round!

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