Kru Phil Nurse: ... the one appying the VaselineKru Phil Nurse recently spoke in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission regarding charges and allegations that he greased his fighter during Georges St. Pierre's bout with BJ Penn at UFC 94.

Officials took a strong position on these allegations, taking them seriously and considering all evidence presented before concluding that there would be no action taken against Georges St. Pierre regarding the allegations put forth by BJ Penn in his formal complaint to the Athletic Commission.

"They put their lives on the line... if what happened that night was going to cause some discrepency in any way shape or form, I would never have gone that route. Anyone who knows me knows that that's not me.... I'm not that kind of person to cheat," asserted Kru Phil Nurse as he sat before the athletic commission, seated next to Grag Jackson, with BJ Penn sitting on the far side of the same table.

"I've been doing martial arts for a lot of years. I'm not like a little kid, I'm 45 years old, and I've been in martial arts for a lot of years. Integrity is a big thing. I wouldn't jeopardize my fighter, or training partners or my fighter in that at all. I'm sorry it came to this."

Nurse concedes that he watched the tape several times, and was visibly disappointed at how tape of the between-round action made him look. "watching the tape of myself afterwards," Nurse says, "I was like 'I can't believe how that looks.' I hope we can clear it up. I would never do anything like that." When asked how it looked to him, he admitted it "doesn't look good." He also stated that "the camera can show you a lot of things... some say cameras don't lie. "

Nurse admitted that it looked as though he had put Vaseline on his fighter, and again referred to energy and relaxation techniques he's used throughout his career as a corner-man to fighters.

"It looked like I was putting vaseline on him, and I was doing what I was taught to do as an energy technique... I even got the energy technique wrong," Nurse humbly and surprisingly admitted. "I have a minute to get my fighter ready to get back into battle. In that minute, there's so stuff much going on, so much screaming and yelling,... Mr. Kizer came to me (after the fight) and and he says 'What was that about? What happened?' and I still had to look at him as if to say 'what is it?'. In the heat of everything, I really didn't know what was going on."

Nurse explained that the decision to send him out to the octagon with the responsibility of applying the vaseline in the corner was a late decision, one made in the heat of the moment as Georges St. Pierre was actually preparing to walk to the octagon. "Honestly, I wasn't even set to do the Vaseline," states Nurse. "In hindsight, it probably shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have been that guy."

"Between us, our corner, we're on things," Nurse details. "We have it all planned out. I think, earlier that night, Greg (Jaskson) had cornered an earlier fight. We're usually all together, but he had cornered that earlier fight. We were right there waiting to walk out to the Octagon, waiting for them to say "alright, you guys come in." We're waiting there before Red comes running up, like 'okay we're ready,' and as we're walking into the crowd, the decision is made, 'Phil, you do the Vaseline,' and it was just like 'okay, I'm on it.'"

The commission did its best to pursue a viable explanation of Nurse's interpretation of what he saw on the tape of Georges St. Pierre's fight while working his corner between rounds. Asked to clarify that Nurse indeed was on record as quoting that the tape iself looked bad, Nurse confirmed. BJ Penn spent much of the time during Nurse's speech with his eyes deadlocked on Nurse, his face emotionless.

"I was doing what I have admitted to do," Phil said of his actions in the corner. "I have to get him ready. I was briefed earlier that I had to do the energy technique, because of the game plan we had... that game plan being, you know, BJ is very strong with his boxing, and that boxing, we had to take his hands out."

Phil was honest in his assessment, carried an honest tone, and overall spoke with a nervous, fast-paced demeanor as he addressed and responded to every single question put in front of him by the State Athletic Commission. Although somewhat tense, he did not strike me as though he was being indirect, or untruthful in any way. Rather, he may have simply been discomforted by the notion of questions so firmly being directed at him in this setting, as opposed to that of a gym or training environment.

He goes on to explain what it was like between rounds, as GSP's cornerman, from his own perspective. "All this screaming went on and I wondered what was going on, where's all this coming from. In hindsight, I don't know what people should have done. I was never told anything directly, I just saw screaming, and there are thousands of people in there screaming. After that moment, I heard 'Vaseline' and wondered 'what are they saying?' After that, if you watch the tape again, there's no other time after that, that I don't wipe my hands... I wipe my hands off clean, and show the commissioner."

"But I'm still kinda like "I have to take care of Georges", my fighter," explains Nurse. "Maybe then, I still went like this, not touching his face (motions the technique he performed on Georges' shoulders), still trying to 'get him to relax, calm down', pushing his shoulders down, get relaxed... they come behind me again, after I've done my hands, and wipe him down again.

The questions at this point focused squarely on the relaxation and energy techniques that Phil had used in the corner on GSP. Phil admitted that these were techniques that in some cases he both knew, and was still learning. He stated he's cornered a total of four fights for St. Pierre in the UFC. When asked if there was a towel available to Kru Phil, he stated that although there may have been, his thought process was not endearing anything but the preparation and maintenance of his fighter.

“It’s up to the commission to decide how much further they want to formally go on this,” Kizer said afterwards. “They could make regulatory changes, they could issue some sort of directive to me or the inspectors or referees to handle situations differently,” he said.

However, Kizer maintained he would not issue a complaint against St. Pierre or his camp.

“I have no plans to bring anything against anybody in this case,” he confirmed.

Bj Penn hit the ground running with his formal complaint, immediately requiring (or at least requesting) that the commissioners deem all or at least most of the following in this instance necessary:

-- A fine of $250,000 against Georges St. Pierre

-- Suspension of St. Pierre’s license as well as the licenses of Jackson and Nurse

-- Change the result of the bout to a “no contest”

-- A requirement that St. Pierre undergo a pre-bout shower to make sure no substances exist on his body

In some instances, these requests were absolutely ridiculous, and served to further punctuate Penn's bitterness throughout this debate, however indirectly delivered it may have been. We look forward to the futures of both Georges St. Pierre, as he looks forward to a match-up with a game Thiago Alves in the near future, and BJ Penn as he looks to recoup this loss at 170 lbs. by continuing to run the show at 155 lbs. We are also thrilled to see this weeks-long running controversy officially laid to rest.

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