MMAVu

In what has to be considered a real coup for mixed martial arts, George St. Pierre has been named, “Canadian Athlete of the Year” by SportsNet.ca, a major broadcaster here in Canada.St. Pierre not only defeated other nominees, hockey player Jarome Iginla, Paralympian Chantal Petitclerc, tennis player Daniel Nestor and baseball player Justin Morneau, he did it by garnering a whopping 89% of total reader votes!!

I voted GSP.

Said GSP:

I want to thank Rogers Sportsnet and (Sportsnet analyst Showdown) Joe Ferraro for promoting the sport of MMA, because without them the sport would not be as known as it is right now in Canada. I want to thank everybody for their support and voting for me — I want to be a good Canadian ambassador for the sport and represent MMA well.

St. Pierre’s next task is a rematch aginst 155lb Champion BJ Penn on Jan 31, Super Bowl weekend. St. Pierre took the first meeting by split-decision, but was the more battered of the two fighters. As Penn likes to say about the first fight, “After the fight, he went to the hospital; I went to the bar.”

Things are looking up for St. Pirre, he’s only 27 and became the first mixed martial arts fighter to sign with CAA Sports, home of heavy hitters like Sidney Crosby, Derek Jeter and LeBron James. That’s big money company for sure.

With Anderson Silva unable to be ready for a UFC 95 fight, the promotion has turned to its lightweights to headline the card. Diego Sanchez will face Joe Stevenson in the main event at London’s O2 Arena Feb 21.Sanchez was on the cusp of a 170lb title shot when he was scheduled to face Thiago Silva at UFC 90 this past October. Unfortunately for him, a rib injury forced him off of the card. Josh Koscheck stepped in to face Alves on short notice, and proceeded to get pummeled by Alves for three rounds. An interesting thing to note is that Koscheck was the first guy to hand Sanchez a professional loss. So the guy who beat him got beat by another guy…that may have spurred Sanchez on to a drop in weight.

Stevenson is like a top 5 gate keeper of the 155′ers, always the bridesmaid but never the bride…yet. Stevenson is one tough hombre and is still a pup at 26 years of age. He’s in a mini-slump now, having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights.

Both these guys can go and this should be a non-stop war, both on the ground and on the feet. You sure could do worse for a main event!