The short answer to that is, not yet. Georges "Rush" St. Pierre is one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time and for many, he sits atop that list by himself. It goes without saying then that he is also considered to be the greatest welterweight of all time and in UFC history. It is pretty big news then when a welterweight does enough where people start mentioning his name in the same breath as GSP, but that's the territory we have entered with Kamaru Usman. He's not there yet, he's not, but he's going to really start making this a conversation if he keeps up his current pace for another 2 years, which of course is easier said than done. I just want to take the time to really give them a close look and see how much Usman has to do in order to catch Georges and maybe some places where he already has surpassed him. Just to be clear, I'm not discussing a theoretical fight between the two because I'm not that type of analyst and don't have the credentials to break down styles and skills in the way that conversation would require. This will be strictly resume based and we'll see how they stack up.
We'll start with the easiest and most surface level things first. Kamaru Usman has an overall record of 20-1, with his lone loss coming in his second career fight, which makes him 15-0 in his UFC career. Georges is 26-2 in his career, with his losses coming to Matt Serra and Matt Hughes, making him 21-2 in the UFC. Right now, Usman has the 0 in the loss column for his UFC career, which will go a long way towards helping him if he can keep that 0 but catch Georges in total wins and fights. a 21-0 or 23-0 would be hard to argue against. His 15 straight wins are also one short of tying Anderson Silva's record of 16 straight wins. Having the longest winning streak in UFC history would be one box Usman could check that Georges doesn't have.
While totals are great, let's narrow things down and just look at fights involving the championship. Kamaru Usman defeated Tyron Woodley for the title and has successfully defended it 5 times, making him 6-0 in UFC title fights. Georges lost his first opportunity at the title to Matt Hughes. He worked his way back to defeat Hughes for the title only to lose it in his first defense to Matt Serra, bringing his total to 1-2 in title fights to that point. He won the interim belt in a trilogy with Hughes, before defeating Serra to unify the belts, which makes him 3-2 if you count the interim title fight, which I will because if he loses that, he may never get the Serra fight. That also would've meant he losses the trilogy to Hughes and may never get to fight him a 4th time if Hughes would have won the unification bout with Serra. Georges then went on to defend his title 9 consecutive times that ended with him retiring and vacating the title after a controversial split decision win over Johnny Hendricks, bring his total to 12-2. Georges returned after approximately four years away from the sport to fight middleweight champion Michael Bisping and defeated him to get to his final record of 13-2 in title fights, but we'll talk more about the move up in a little bit.
By a little bit, I mean immediately after. One big thing that Georges has that Usman currently does not is that he went up a weight class and captured the title. I've heard some people hold it against GSP that he waited to move up until after Anderson Silva was no longer champion, implying that he ducked him and waited until there was a champion that he knew he could beat, but I honestly think that's a little bit of a stretch. A lot of people think this is what really separates people in the GOAT conversation, but I'm not completely sure of how much stock to put into it. I mean, Khabib never moved up and people put him in the conversation. Jon Jones hasn't moved up yet and he's been in that conversation for several years now, so it doesn't negatively effect their case, but in comparing GSP and Kamaru Usman directly, it is a nice item to have for the St. Pierre side.
The final thing I want to cover is their strength of schedule. This one can be a little weird as there's not really a perfect way to quantify it. This is one of the main arguments that people will use against St. Pierre, but it can be done in a misleading way at times. Some people will reference BJ Penn's final record, but his overall record was really damaged by a bad stretch at the end of his career when he was fighting beyond when he should have been. His second fight with GSP was the unofficial beginning of the end for him, but obviously we couldn't have known that in the moment. Others will use Thiago Alves and Dan Hardy's end career stats as a way to improve GSP's resume, but don't fully acknowledge their experience level at the time. People will dismiss the Nick Diaz fight, but I don't think that's completely on Georges either. There's also the crowd that will say he lost to Johnny Hendricks and maybe he did, but I feel like almost anyone in the GOAT conversation has had close decisions go their way so, I can't hold it against him. I think this is the area where Usman can really make up some ground though. It's hard to judge since most of his opponents are still active, but one can argue that Usman's best wins can go head to head With GSP's already and Usman still has some defenses left to go. Two wins over both Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal, with 1 of each being a finish plus a dominant win over Woodley is a really nice start to Usman's resume. We'll see where he can finish at, but he's off to a great start on the level of competition front because even GSP's biggest fans would admit that some of his fights weren't necessarily the highest level of difficulty.
With all that said, I think most people already agreed that St. Pierre was ahead of Usman before my short explanations. That's great and all, but how does Usman get passed him? The easy answer is just to say that Usman has to break all of his records and beat his streaks and what not. Of course that would be the clearest way to do so, but I don't believe that's the only way. First, I think if Usman can tie and then surpass Silva's record 16 fight win streak, that would give him something Georges doesn't have. We know Khabib is 29-0, but only 13 of those fights came within the UFC. Usman is already 15-0 in the UFC. If we see that streak continue to rise for him to 17, 18, or 19-0, that will start to become a story I imagine. Staying undefeated in the UFC career is the easiest way for Usman to catch Georges. No one really holds that Matt Hughes loss against him because Hughes is one of the five best welterweights in UFC history in his own right and is 3rd on most people's list. The loss to Matt Serra however is a one of the only blemishes on GSP's resume, so if Usman stayed undefeated, that would really accentuate that loss for Georges. One major advantage George has is that he was able to get into the title picture much more quickly. This really puts Usman behind the 8 ball when it comes to matching St. Pierre's 13-2 record in title fights. Usman is already 34 and is only 6-0 in title fights. Getting another 9 title fights in before he walks away might be too much unless Usman holds this level into his late 30s and potentially early 40s. The best way for him to get anywhere near that number is for him to stay undefeated and to keep up his activity level. If he loses the belt and has to work his way back to it, that may not leave enough time in his career to get to those 13 wins or 15 total appearances. I think another major key for Kamaru Usman is to match or surpass the 9 straight defenses the Georges has. He would need 5 more wins in a row to pass it, which would likely take him to around his 36th birthday. Obviously that will be very difficult to do, but if he did, I think things would look very different when it comes to this argument.
Let's for a second assume he could actually win those 5 fights in a row and get to 10 consecutive defenses. That would move Usman to 25-1 overall, 20-0 in the UFC, 11-0 in title fights, and a 20 fight win streak in the UFC, shattering Silva's record. To get there, Usman will likely have to go through Leon Edwards next (1). The others could be a rematch with Gilbert Burns (2) and fresh matchups with the likes of Stephen Thompson (3), Vicente Luque (4), and the looming fight with Khamzat Chimaev (5). Of course those aren't the only possibilities as there's names like Michael Chiesa and Neil Magny who could rise to a shot and young contenders like Sean Brady who could make a push sometime in the future. There's also the argument that I didn't touch on much because it comes from a more fighter perspective, which I am most definitely not, but I do have to acknowledge it to some degree. I'll call it the optics argument and Chael Sonnen is someone who refers to this often. I'll believe his point of view as a former fighter that it means something to him (and by proxy the rest of the roster and former fighters). He basically says that Georges came up and defeated the best of the era before him to get the title, defended it against everyone in his own era, and then started defeating some of the best of the next era. We've seen Usman defeat Demian Maia, Rafael Dos Anjos, and Tyron Woodley to represent the past era. Of course we've seen him defeat this best of his own era in Colby Covington, Jorge Masvidal, Gilbert Burns, and Leon Edwards (once before they both rose to the top). Future fights against Sean Brady, Khamzat Chimaev, or both would represent him defeating the future of the division, much like GSP's win over Johnny Hendricks was viewed. I think being within striking distance of all of Georges's career totals while maintaining perfection, while breaking two of records, including one owned by Georges would have Kamaru Usman first on some lists and if not, heavily debated. The last piece will be how his strength of schedule ages and does he move up. Obviously its impossible to tell, but if Colby Covington, Jorge Masvidal, Gilbert Burns, and Leon Edwards all go on to have great careers and only lose to each other, then that makes Usman look better. If one of them goes on and loses a bunch of fights to so-so fighters, then that will make it look weaker. Similar to what happened with Johnny Hendricks and GSP, if someone that Usman beats goes on to be the holder of the championship after Usman walks away from the sport (looking at Chimaev and Brady mostly), that will also help him out. In the eyes of some, Usman will have to move up in order to match him. I don't know that I agree because I don't think winning a single fight against one isolated opponent really proves that much, but I'm only one person so. It doesn't seem that Usman has any interest in moving up to fight current champion Israel Adesanya due to the friendship that the two enjoy together. I don't blame him for not wanting to do it because while I'm not a professional fighter, I can't imagine wanting to fight my friends regardless of sport or money involved, but no one's ever offered me millions to do it either. If Adesanya retires, loses the belt, or moves up himself then maybe we will see Usman go up and try to become double champ.
I think that does it for me on this one. Kamaru Usman hasn't caught up to Georges St. Pierre just yet, but he's becoming way closer than we've ever seen someone get. I think that's why everyone gets so excited over this topic. This may be the last chance for awhile that someone has to catch the living legend that is Georges "Rush" St. Pierre. I don't think Usman is there yet and there's still a little separation, but I for one am excited to watch Usman's pursuit over the next 3 years or however long Usman can continue his reign and overall career. What do you guys think? How close is Usman to catching Georges? Do you think he can do it? Do you think its ridiculous to even bring this up because Georges is untouchable? Thanks for reading and have a good one. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also sorry this one is coming out a little late today, will hopefully have one ready for the morning tomorrow.
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