Georges St. Pierre to face Jake Shields at UFC 129 in Toronto
by Jason Benfari on January 03, 2011

As first reported weeks ago at FiveKnuckles.com, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre will indeed be headed back to Canada to defend his title against former Strikeforce champion Jake Shields at UFC 129.

The news was confirmed today by UFC president Dana White.

St. Pierre (21-2), considered by many to be the greatest fighter in the world pound-for-pound, has been as dominant a champion as the sport has seen. The 29-year-old Canadian native hasn't lost so much as a round in over three years and has won eight consecutive fights over the best fighters in his division spanning that time frame. 

With a win over Shields, who is considered to be the last real test for St. Pierre in the division, it has been heavily speculated that the champion would consider vacating his crown in order to move up to the UFC's middleweight division in search of new blood. 

Shields (24-4-1) debuted with the organization in October with a hard-fought split-decision win over Martin Kampmann at UFC 121. A former middleweight, Shields notoriously dropped 20 pounds in one day to make weight for the fight and subsequently looked sluggish, gassing by the middle of the fights' first round.

The highly regarded catch wrester and submission specialist was still able to hold on for a victory however, and has hasn't lost a fight since 2004 -  an amazing span of 15 contests. Over that span, Shields defeated high caliber fighters like Yushin Okami, Carlos Condit, Paul Daley Robbie Lawler and Dan Henderson.

UFC 129 is set to take place at the Rogers Centre on April 30 and could draw a reported 40,000 fans. That number would nearly double MMA's all-time North American attendance record set just last month at UFC 124 when 23,152 fans piled in to Montreal's Bell Centre to watch St. Pierre successfully defend his title against Josh Koscheck. 

 |  (340) Comments flyangler: Shields looks like he just shit himself in that pick. He probably did when the fight became official. IwishIwasMMA: .....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Marker28: I think whether Shields wins or loses, he will be making way more than he did at SF. GO HARD: i think i never gave a less of a fuck about a title fight.... War Sheilds but this fight is all GSP. He finally might get a finish. Wandering_Minstrel: Silly Shields... thinking he has a chance. Pfffft. GSP is gonna light him up on the feet, toss Jake around like a ragdoll when he inevitably shoots for a takedown, and punch his face in until the doctor has to stop the fight. D_V: He does have a chance on paper, looking at their resumes, but where the rubber meets the road he's going to get his ass kicked. Mickey knox: I'm almost dreading watching this fight..........but I can always hope GSP knocks Sheilds head off. Punch, Kick......I don't care which. I don't see him needing to be too cautious in the stand up, I mean, Sheilds could concievably take him down................maybe. But, it won't go anywhere, and he won't keep GSP down, IF he takes him down. The good thing is, GSP might vacate the title after this, and WW might get interesting again. GO HARD: soooo Ben Henderson vs Mark Bocek got added to 129, so can Bocek submit the unsubmitable? jbreemen: It would be some shit if shields pulled off the upset. jbreemen: GSP training with Roger Gracie and Braulio Estima B_Type13X2: guys guys... we need to hug this out.... arlovskiviako: GH is not here so. Anderson would beat GSP standing easily. But if GSP wanted to take him down, Anderson would just use his world class Take Down Defense and stuff everything GSP could throw at him. Then just to embarass GSP, Anderson will take him down and ride out a decision. d;D Signed, GH D_V: GSP would kill Silva, and Thug is acting like wiener B_Type13X2: That's it this just got serious GH your now off my Xmas card list. Anyway's Can anyone make a really sound argument as to why Shields has even a 30% chance of pulling out a win here? I am pretty sure he does not have knockout power or the striking skills to stand with GSP. He has wrestling but is it better then GSP's? He is arguably better at JJ but will that even matter in this fight? Will he have the chance to show it? Does he look better in an underwear ad? Seriously I want to know how he beats him, and I don't like to say a champion is invincible or anything like that, I absolutely hate saying things like that, but I can't picture how he wins unless GSP is fucking horribly drunk sloppy and falls into a submission. D_V: GSP is just going to make him stand the whole time and probably take his head off arlovskiviako: Hughes doesn't have great BJJ, the only times he wins BJJ matches is on points, because of his wrestling. arlovskiviako: If we are referring to the Mo/ Mousassi fight, then you wouldn't be punching him in the face, you would be laying there while getting kicked and punched in the face. IwishIwasMMA: Even if Shields has better BJJ.. it doesnt matter. Shields wont get this fight to the ground.. well he could, but he will be on the bottom being smashed. As for GSP and Shields in the stand up........................ Hendo showed you what a bad striker with power can do to Shields. Imagine what a technical striker with power can do. Shields is going to look worse than Kos in this fight. I feel bad for the Gracie and Shields fans. Sorry guys. No world title is coming home just yet. Although Shields SHOULD move up to MW IMO. He is not that small and has an amazing skillset for those under achievers. D_V: Well, they can't be scored evenly. They don't do equal parts damage. horizontalcracker: To me for grappling, if we would look at it this way. Attempting a takedown = +1 Avoiding a takedown = +1 Getting the takedown = +1 So you attempt one, he avoids. +1 for both of you. Negated. You attempt one, you get it. +1 for you. You're up 1. Lay'n'PrayNINJA: D_V's argument: "The guy defending the submission is actually scoring the points." but then "NO. The guy stuffing the TD should not get any points, he hasn't done anything offensive!!! Grrrrr" Derp Derp Derp... JujitsWho: lol D_V: So, you hate the rules, but refer to them for most of your arguments? just checking. GO HARD: i just agree with joe rogan on the subject. B_Type13X2: what constitutes a downed opponent also needs to be redefined I had a post in the general MMA section where I outlined what I thought was a fair assessment of a downed opponent. Also just because you think your right doesn't mean you are, this is an opinion based discussion, and most of MMA is subjective. But one thing that cannot be argued is that the current unified rules do favor wrestlers and that's because they take weapons away from the fighters that would make there actually be a penalty for nixing a takedown attempt. How many knees to your head are you going to take before you let go of that leg? Lay'n'PrayNINJA: I accept your apologies in advance!!! :) D_V: This has gotten ridiculous a long time ago. How can you quote me saying defense shouldn't score 5 times and then quote me saying submission defense scores as control and not believe me when I say I was being sarcastic? That seems awfully small of you. Anyways, there is no fight that I have ever scored where you can look at it and say that I scored it unfairly favoring a wrestler. None. Your argument is predicated on the assumption that wrestlers are given unfair scores when in fact, you scored Maynard the 3rd round against Edgar when I didn't. It just goes to show how this is ridiculous. If you don't like my system, fine, I don't really care what you like. I think your system is stupid, to be honest. Under your system Machida beat Rua in their first fight. Under your system the wrong guy wins. There are so many reasons why it's difficult to score MMA. Adding more reasons is not a good thing. So, a take down is not offense, so if I take you down, then you sweep me and ride top position ( a neutral position) on top of me for the rest of the round, it is even? I mean, if take downs don't score, sweeps shouldn't either in that criteria, but then, I guess under your system defending the sweep should score??? After all, you want to sweep me and I don't want that so I'm winning, even though we're exchanging neutral positions (see the sarcasm there). It's just , in general, a bonehead thing to consider. take down attempts and take down defense aren't offense and don't score. Take downs score. end of discussion. You get into side debates about affective grappling and stupid shit like that and it becomes retarded. D_V: and for the record, sweeps score exactly the same as a take down with me. D_V: The judge can favor whomever he wants. Should he is the question, and the answer is no, he shouldn't favor the better defender. If I'm 20/100 and you are 18/20 and our shots are both determined to be roughly equal as in power shots to others etc. I am still winning the fight. It makes no sense to punish people for attempts of any kind, offensively. JujitsWho: I think this dead horse has officially been beat enough LOL Its pretty obvious that we just aren't going to see this the same way You view sprawls as effective grappling and score it one way. DV and myself see sprawls as defense and don't score it at all.....or at least score it so low that it pointless anyway Its just a fundamental difference in how we view things. Lets just leave it at that and hope that someone in charge works on improving the wording of the scoring criteria to avoid this kind of thing in the future. nygiant: Your mom's Just thought id try and break it up
HOW WILL THE THIAGO ALVES VS. MARTIN KAMPMANN FIGHT END AT UFC ON FX 2?
Alves def. Kampmann via TKO/KO
Alves def. Kampmann via submission
Alves def. Kampmann via decision
Kampmann def. Alves via TKO/KO
Kampmann def. Alves via submission
Kampmann def. Alves via decision
TAKE ANOTHER POLL!