Did GSP ever have an actual rival?

The Hash Slinging Slasher said:
Lost to Hughes by submission, came back and stopped him twice.
Lost to Serra by strikes, came back and beat the brakes off him.
Won a close fight with BJ, came back and made him quit on the stool.
Beat koscheck comfortably the first time, came in and wrecked him the second time.
What do you mean he didn’t do much on rematches? He is 5-0.
I’m not saying he would have 100% beat Hendricks in a rematch, that’s pure speculation. But he does have a history of performing well when facing someone he lost to or had a close fight with.
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I am not sure what your intended point was on the original post, but it makes no sense in relationship to the thread or my original comment.
1) He finished Penn on rematch - Penn was a definitely LW fighter fighting above his weight and had a losing record at WW to show for it.
2) Serra who was never a highly rated fighter - this fight only gets remembered because Serra made GSP tap to strikes (when did any other high level fighter do this?)
3) Hughes - He won the belt back from Hughes after Hughes made the stupid move of having only a 8 week training camp before the fight. This is his only set of fights where someone can argue about - Hughes was possibly no longer in his prime for the rematches but no way to know the facts.

GSP had two decision wins over Koscheck = nothing impressive there.
 
SherdogFan23 said:
I have never claimed he was a bad fighter at all.... just overrated.
He won most of his fights against opponents by spamming take-downs in my opinion. Note that with all of those take-downs he has almost no TKO's or submissions.
He clearly was a very smart fighter and definitely had high level talent.
He is a very "popular" choice for GOAT (wins the Sherdog popularity polls). But he is definitely not the best. If we are comparing the prime for each of the GOAT candidates he is barely Top 5 in my opinion.
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Possibly overrated. More of a great athlete that can also fight.
I’m not arguing with you.

So hard hitters that ko people are your top 5. Fantastic.

Again, not arguing with you. The hard hitters have it easy. One punch power is a talent.
So is negating that power punch though.
 
WTF2008 said:
Again, what?

I liked Hendricks a lot. His fall off is suspect though.
Went from almost or possibly beating GSP to losing to way less talented fighters.
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He lost because he couldn't make weight under the new USADA rules. He likely had the same problem that Conor had at FW (IV's). He may have dealt with discipline issues like Gastelum. Both guys are undersized for MW but struggled to make weight at WW.
 
MMA Maine-iac said:
People still salty over the Hendricks fight. Find a hobby. <45>
Hughes was his biggest rival.
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You obviously need to learn to read. I mentioned what happened in a disagreement over history. But I am no GSP fan boy or hater. I don't even care who won or lost.
 
SherdogFan23 said:
He lost because he couldn't make weight under the new USADA rules. He likely had the same problem that Conor had at FW (IV's). He may have dealt with discipline issues like Gastelum. Both guys are undersized for MW but struggled to make weight at WW.
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This makes sense. I can’t imagine having to weigh cut that much.
 
WTF2008 said:
Possibly overrated. More of a great athlete that can also fight.
I’m not arguing with you.

So hard hitters that ko people are your top 5. Fantastic.

Again, not arguing with you. The hard hitters have it easy. One punch power is a talent.
So is negating that power punch though.
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Don't worry about the arguing. I disagree with whomever, but I don't intend ill will. I sometimes get frustrated. It hard to discuss things on Sherdog sometimes, because throwing "supposed facts" into the void always gets you rated as fan boy or hater (never in between). That always bothers me.

I personally weigh finishes more heavily than most people. Trying to get finishes is risky. About half of my favorites were high level in their prime because of submissions and grappling, not KO's or TKO's.
 
SherdogFan23 said:
Don't worry about the arguing. I disagree with whomever, but I don't intend ill will. I sometimes get frustrated. It hard to discuss things on Sherdog sometimes, because throwing "supposed facts" into the void always gets you rated as fan boy or hater (never in between). That always bothers me.

I personally weigh finishes more heavily than most people. Trying to get finishes is risky. About half of my favorites were high level in their prime because of submissions and grappling, not KO's or TKO's.
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Finishes are definitely more exciting, but you cant look at a GSP vs Fitch and say it wasn’t good.
 
It's insane to think that Koscheck had the best take down against George, all the way back in their first fight but he got beaten the rest of the fight lol.
 
SherdogFan23 said:
I am not sure what your intended point was on the original post, but it makes no sense in relationship to the thread or my original comment.
1) He finished Penn on rematch - Penn was a definitely LW fighter fighting above his weight and had a losing record at WW to show for it.
2) Serra who was never a highly rated fighter - this fight only gets remembered because Serra made GSP tap to strikes (when did any other high level fighter do this?)
3) Hughes - He won the belt back from Hughes after Hughes made the stupid move of having only a 8 week training camp before the fight. This is his only set of fights where someone can argue about - Hughes was possibly no longer in his prime for the rematches but no way to know the facts.

GSP had two decision wins over Koscheck = nothing impressive there.
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If you don’t like the guy, that’s fine. There’s plenty of fighters I don’t like, but I can say someone is good or even great even though I dislike them. But it sounds like you’re implying that the greates WW of all time, and quite possibly the GOAT, is not a good fighter, and also implying that he’s afraid of another fighter.
By the way, who is your favorite fighter? I’m sure that I can do some digging and explain why all their biggest victories aren’t meaningful, and their losses are to complete cans.
 
Azor said:
It's insane to think that Koscheck had the best take down against George, all the way back in their first fight but he got beaten the rest of the fight lol.
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Its not that crazy. Kos is underrated these days. He had a wicked double
 
SherdogFan23 said:
GSP retired because he knew that Hendricks would beat him in a rematch. If significant strikes had been graded differently in the first fight, he would have lost it.
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GSP said BEFORE the fight that he would make an announcement after the fight. Should he have re matched Hendricks? Maybe, but GSP was obviously planning on stepping away well before the actual fight
 
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613 said:
If not for the eye poke, GSP likely would have 30-27ed Penn. It was only close because GSP couldn't see
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You jus´dont know what you´re talkin´about, mate...
 
BJ and Hughes in that they were able to face him twice,and were seen as seasoned top shelf world championship level fighters.

Hughes had to be overcome for GSP to step into greatness,and it was a achieved...and BJ had lost a close fight to him,and GSP widened the gap between them in a huge way in the rematch.

He had tougher fights,with Condit,Fitch and Hendricks,but other than Hendricks most probably immediate rematch,those other guys never got near enough to make a real rivalry with GSP.
 
I guess Matt Serra.
Maybe David Loiseau from camp because he was having the time of his life watching GSP get butchered by Serra in the first one.
<{outtahere}>
 
It depends on what definition you are going off. If you are referring to a rival as someone that is striving to be more successful than someone else, then yes, he had a number of them.

If you are referring to the someone that rivaled him defined as an equal peer, then no, he didn’t. Not when he was at his peak at least.

I say this as someone who recognizes his greatness, but wasn’t a fan of his style and carefulness later in his career. He could have finished most of those later fights, if he had chosen to take a small risk.
 
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