Man, it's been a while since I posted and rather than list my excuses, I'm going to jump right in and discuss a potential strategy Georges St. Pierre may pursue in his fight against BJ Penn tonight at UFC 94.GSP has repeatedly said that his goal is to finish BJ Penn, a feat only achieved by Matt Hughes at UFC 63 after Penn suffered a rib injury. BJ undoubtedly has one of the best ground games in the world, particularly when it comes to defending himself on the bottom the improving his position by passing the guard. In fact he's so slick on the ground that I can't remember anyone getting even halfway close to a decent submission attempt on him.
Enter the highly motivated and athletic GSP.
Georges spent part of last year in Brazil honing his BJJ skills with leg lock specialist Gustavo Machado. And since then, GSP has received his black belt from Bruno Fernandes of Gracie Barra. Given his desire to finish BJ, there is a very good chance GSP will be going for a submission, and most likely it will be an attack on the Hilo boy's legs. GSP wants to build a legacy, and there aren't many better ways to do it than submitting the best BJJ practitioner in MMA.
If you've picked up the excellent Renzo Gracie: Legacy DVD, you know that one of the extras is a training session in which Matt Serra and Ricardo Almeida prep Renzo for his 2005 fight against BJ Penn. During that practice, we learned that Ralph Gracie (Renzo's brother and BJ's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor up to purple belt) told Renzo that BJ tapped to leg locks quite a bit in practice.
And we do know that Renzo trained GSP to fight BJ at UFC 58. I'm sure that little tidbit about BJ Penn being susceptible to leg locks came up in their training sessions, though GSP never attempted a sub against BJ.
Now, landing a leg lock on BJ will not be easy. BJ's legs are extremely flexible and getting those legs into an uncomfortable position won't be easy. And when it comes to practicing BJJ, many people will tap early to leg attacks because it is very easy to cause serious injuries with them, making what happened in practice back in the 90's somewhat irrelevant.
To recap, the train goes like this:
Ralph Gracie trains BJ Penn -->> sees BJ tap to leg locks -->> tells Renzo Gracie -->> Renzo tells GSP -->> GSP trains with leg lock specialist in 2008 -->> GSP attempts a leg lock on BJ tonight.
