Georges St.Pierre took part in a Q&A over at the LA Times earlier this week, and when he was asked who he believed was the sport’s pound-for-pound best fighter he gave an answer that might raise a few eyebrows.
“No. 1 is Frankie Edgar; he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter we have,” GSP stated.
That’s a surprising statement given that Edgar lost his lightweight title to Ben Henderson earlier in the year by unanimous decision, and then came up on the wrong side of another decision to him just a few months later.
Nevertheless, St.Pierre insists that Edgar is still the better man.
“He lost his fight to Benson Henderson only according to the judges. He was much stronger than Henderson.”
For the record, GSP then goes on to name Anderson Silva as the second best fighter, and Jon Jones as the third – conveniently leaving himself out of the equation despite most observers having ranked him as one of the top three for several years during his long reign of dominance at 170lbs.
I can see where he’s coming from to an extent with regards to Edgar. There certainly is a strong case to be made for him having won his second fight with Henderson, and if we’re going on a pure ‘pound-for-pound’ basis what he has over the others mentioned is that he was genuinely undersized for the division he was competing in. If he moves down to featherweight and takes Jose Aldo’s title then everybody will sit up and take notice.
Even with that in mind I struggle to see how he can rank Edgar above Silva who’s been on an unparalleled run of success in the UFC over many years and has also managed to move up to 205lbs and look just as, if not even more, convincing than he does in his natural weight class.
