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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Controversy has been stirring over the last few days over the Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn fight on Saturday night, as one of GSP's trainers, Phil Nurse, appeared to rub the chest and shoulders of St. Pierre with a hand he had used to apply Vaseline to the face of his fighter. The action prompted Nevada State Athletic Commission Keith Kizer to enter the Octagon and personally wipe down GSP while admonishing Nurse. The Commission toweled down GSP after rounds two and three. The implication has been that perhaps this gave St. Pierre an added edge, and in fact B.J. Penn's camp was expected to file a complaint with the NSAC, which has to the moment still not been filed.
Georges St. Pierre did not cheat to beat B.J. Penn. No matter what's been said and no matter what anyone wants to say that they "saw," the fact of the matter is GSP dominated B.J. Penn in a way no amount of "greasing" would have caused. The issue here is the error by Nurse, who after legally applying a minuscule amount of Vaseline to St. Pierre's face used that same hand to rub his chest in shoulders. First off, the rubbing of St. Pierre's chest and shoulders is a ritualistic action that has been performed by Nurse many times in the past for GSP in between rounds. It's meant to calm and re-center the fighter to go out for the next round of action. What happened on Saturday night is Nurse did so without completely clearing his hands of the Vaseline. That being said, the amount that he may have had on his fingers is nothing that would have affected the outcome of that fight, and even so St. Pierre was wiped down with towels in between rounds by the NSAC.
St. Pierre outstruck B.J. Penn while they were on their feet. When it was on the ground, he passed B.J.'s guard with ease to maintain side control. His lower body, not his chest or shoulders, is what had to slide away from B.J.'s guard. In no way was there any competitive edge gained from anything that St. Pierre's corner did in between rounds; the competitive edge was simply St. Pierre himself. Phil Nurse should probably face punishment for failing to follow protocol after applying the Vaseline to St. Pierre's face, but in no way should the Welterweight Champion's most dominant victory be tainted from this. Grease didn't beat B.J. Penn, Georges St. Pierre did, and to suggest at all that St. Pierre is in any way at fault in this issue is an asinine approach.
This "controversy" has blown out of proportion over the last few days, with plenty of people weighing in to jump all over GSP, and it's ridiculous. This was not a conscious act of malice in competition, and in all likelihood it's a case of a veteran cornerman not paying enough attention to what he was doing. Again, should Nurse be punished for his mistake? Yeah, he probably should, but his actions did nothing to win the fight for St. Pierre and conversely did nothing to lose it for Penn. In the end it's many trying to reach for controversy because of the nearly unbelievable display Georges St. Pierre put on last Saturday night. St. Pierre's no cheater, he's just that good.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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