UFC 100 Post-Fight Analysis: Will Georges St. Pierre Head to Middleweight After Crushing Thiago Alves?

Georges St. Pierre is the epitome of an immovable object at the top of the UFC's welterweight division. He only further solidified that notion after destroying top contender Thiago Alves in every round on Saturday night in their title showdown at UFC 100, scoring a 50-45 decision on two judges' scorecards and a 50-44 on one judge's scorecard.

The bout was being dubbed as a fight in which Thiago Alves' stand-up prowess could become a huge problem for St. Pierre since each round started with both fighters standing, but St. Pierre brilliantly executed takedowns at key moments. Once on the ground, St. Pierre made Alves pay for ever stepping into the Octagon with smothering control and brutalizing punches and elbows.

The general consensus among fans was that St. Pierre simply needed one takedown per round in order to blow Alves out of the water, and for the most part, that assumption was correct. St. Pierre's dominance within the division from a pure wrestling standpoint is astounding, and he has enough of a stand-up game to defeat even the top-notch wrestlers in the division.

What's next for Georges St. Pierre? The winner of Mike Swick vs. Martin Kampmann is likely in line for a title shot. Jon Fitch has already been given a shot. The UFC is pretty adamant about mixing up the title contenders before a previous contender gets another shot, and I imagine the UFC will press Swick-Kampmann into a contention role.

The major problem is that Swick nor Kampmann seem to offer a huge edge in any area of their skill set to give Georges St. Pierre any problems. He could probably outwrestle both fighters into one-sided beatdowns much like the B.J. Penn fight or Saturday's matchup with Thiago Alves. In fact, St. Pierre could likely continue with the simple gameplan of taking opponents down and crushing them for quite some time without any real challengers.

Photo by By Jon Kopaloff, Getty Images

Once again, the question of whether Georges St. Pierre will move to the UFC's middleweight division is beginning to rear its head. There are two scenarios that could play out. St. Pierre could potentially try to do what Anderson Silva has been doing within his own stale division toward the top in taking lower-ranked fighters on as a precursor to the bigger fights in the division. If that's the case, St. Pierre would legitimately be trying to make a run at the title to hold it.

The second scenario involves St. Pierre simply taking on top middleweight competition from the start in order for the UFC to make loads of money from the superfights that it would produce. Anderson Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre has been discussed in the past, and with his dominating performance over Thiago Alves -- it becomes even more of a possibility. Of course, Silva's run in the light heavyweight division is problematic if St. Pierre truly wants to make a run at Anderson Silva. After all, the light heavyweights have been the promotion's biggest drawing division.

What happens next? Should St. Pierre simply accept his place at the top of the welterweight division and take on contenders for the rest of his career? Should the UFC begin trying to push St. Pierre into a few superfights for big promotional successes in Zuffa's pocketbook? Will St. Pierre permanently move to middleweight for the challenge? It'll be interesting to see what the UFC does, but I'd be more inclined to think that UFC wants to bank on St. Pierre's popularity immediately by setting up some superfights. We'll see how it unfolds in the months to come.