for St-Pierre. The rematch took place on January 31, 2009, at UFC 94. The first round of the fight was nearly even, with both men exchanging punches and Penn exercising elusive head movement, fast hands, good takedown defense - thwarting all of St-Pierre's take-down attempts. In the ensuing three rounds, however, Penn put forth a lackluster performance. St-Pierre dominated the rest of the bout, scoring the first take-down of the night midway through the second round and from that point on, taking Penn down at will, repeatedly passing his guard, and persistently punishing the Hawaiian with a brutal ground-and-pound attack. The fight ended after the fourth round when Penn's cornerman, Jason Parillo, requested that the referee stop the fight. Penn failed to attend the post-fight press conference due to hospitalization for injuries. Penn later admitted that he could not recall anything that happened during the 3rd and 4th rounds because "I was probably borderline knocked out or something." During the fight, Penn complained that St-Pierre was too slippery to hold, which led to suspicion about petroleum jelly being illegally applied to St-Pierre's back. The matter was formally investigated by the UFC and Nevada State Athletic Commission upon the request of the Penn camp. Dana White said it was unfortunate GSP's dominant win was overshadowed by the cornerman controversy. "Do I think that he got greased? Yeah, I do," White told The Canadian Press prior to the UFC 95 weigh-in Friday at the Dominion Theatre. "Absolutely, 100 percent, I think that that guy was rubbing grease on him. Do I think Georges was trying to cheat? Absolutely not at all, but that cornerman was rubbing grease on him; you cannot do that." Prior to UFC 100, Beau Dure of USA Today stated that St-Pierre was possibly "the best in the world." At the event, St-Pierre defeated No. 1 contender Thiago Alves by unanimous decision (50–45, 50–44, and 50–45). Alves showed promise on his feet standing up in the fight, but St-Pierre's wrestling offensive, endurance, and ground control proved too much for the challenger and put St-Pierre en route to a unanimous decision victory, despite suffering a pulled groin muscle in the third round. While St-Pierre said in his post-fight interview that the injury was sustained in the third round, he later said on his blog that the injury in fact occurred in the fourth round. On July 18, 2009, it was