St-Pierre dominates Penn to retain welterweight title UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre used size, quickness strategy and an astonishing arsenal of improved skill sets to retain his title Saturday night against B.J. Penn by stopping the lightweight title holder in four rounds at UFC 94 in Las Vegas.
"Last time I won a decision and this time I really wanted to take him out and I'm glad that I did it. He's very tough," St-Pierre said of his improvement from his first meeting with Penn in 2006.
If nothing else, the natural 155-pounder Penn once again demonstrated his toughness in withstanding St-Pierre's brutal ground-and-pound attack for the better part of 20 minutes but ultimately his corner made a wise decision to call the fight in between the fourth and fifth rounds.
The fight began close as in the first St. Pierre used his reach well in momentary spurts before closing the distance, leaning on his much smaller opponent and then working for takedowns.
Penn managed to defend St-Pierre's takedown attempts for one round but once St. Pierre put the Hawaiian on his back in the second round he immediately began to land big elbows and punches to the head which set up two successful guard passes. In the third round St-Pierre used a jab to the face and body to set up another takedown at just before the four minute mark and again at just before the one minute mark, passing Penn's guard and landing more big head shots in between.
After grounding Penn again early in the fourth, St-Pierre kept him there for almost all of the round, nearly finishing Penn from side mount with strikes to the head. Penn stayed moving and survived but once he got back to his corner his team realized that he had had enough.
With the win St. Pierre improves to 18-2. Penn remains the lightweight champion but sees his career mark fall to 13-5.
Earlier in the night matchmaker Joe Silva mentioned that he was offering a bonus to any fighter that would finish a fight by submission or KO/TKO and Lyoto Machida surprised many by claiming one of those bonuses for himself.
His victory would come at 4:59 of the first round as he knocked out the previously undefeated Thiago Silva with strikes on the ground. With the win Machida has solidified his position as the number one contender to the UFC light heavyweight title.
Asked who he wanted to fight next, Machida turned to the crowd and said, "People, do I deserve a title shot?" The crowd responded with cheering approval.
In an undercard fight, Jon Jones won by unanimous decision over Stephan Bonner. Jones used excellent throws and strong strikes to earn a unanimous decision.
