He Passed Penn's Guard Like No Other
Penn has a bad history with opponents who can pass his guard. Including last night, his guard has been passed in five fights and he has not won any of them. But even in his losses to Machida and Pulver and his draw to Uno, Penn was able to regain guard after all but one of the passes. All told, prior to last night, opponents had advanced past guard 10 times over the 200 minutes in Penn's career.
St. Pierre equaled that number in just 20 minutes. St. Pierre passed to half-guard four times and to side control six times. This is especially significant when you compare those numbers to the first GSP-Penn fight. In both cases, St. Pierre was able to get Penn to the ground four times. But in the first fight, St. Pierre did not pass Penn's guard even once. This time, he passed it within just a few seconds of hitting the mat.
He Cut Penn
Penn has the two natural characteristics that make a fighter very hard to deal with: an iron chin and uncuttable skin. Consider him the anti-Fedor. Penn's career has been remarkable because, win or lose, he always comes out from the fight looking exactly the same as when he came in.
While its true that he hasn't been hit that many times and so hasn't given opponents many chances to cut him, it's not as if he's never been hit with good punches or elbows before. Through all that, no one has been able to do any significant damage to Penn. St. Pierre put an end to that streak in the third round.
He Outstruck Penn 4-1
It's logical to say that good fighters hit their opponents more than they get hit themselves. Penn is no different. Over his career he has outstruck his opponents 549-254. On a per-minute basis he has absorbed 1.225 strikes per minute (SApM) and landed 2.65 strikes per minute (SLpM), a ratio of more than 2-1. (Note: These figures only reference the most significant strikes and are not complete totals).
Previously, Penn had only been outstruck twice in a fight. In his loss to Machida, he was barely outstruck 29-28. In their second fight, Matt Hughes landed exactly twice as many strikes as Penn, beating him 32-16. St. Pierre even doubled that ratio. He landed 49 heavy strikes compared to just 12 for Penn, a 4-1 ratio. Using SApM and SLpM, we see that St. Pierre landed twice as many strikes per minute (2.65 strikes) as a usual Penn opponent (1.225 strikes) and absorbed just 25% (0.6 strikes) of the usual number of strikes that Penn typically lands (2.65 strikes).
