“To be the man, ya gotta beat the man”
Woooooooooooooooo! Ah Slick Ric, what a beauty! I wasn’t just reminded of this last night. I was reminded of a rule from wrestling (and YES they had rules in wrestling!) which was the title could only change hands via pinfall or submission. Well this is almost starting to ring true in MMA. If a title fight goes to the judges and is close, you have to believe they want nothing to do with crowning a new champ. I don’t agree with it, judges need to remove any bias they may have, but it seems to be the way it is. Having said that, I don’t think St.Pierre winning the fight Saturday night was as horrible of a decision as everyone made it out to be.
I don’t agree with the decision. In my mind, Hendricks won the fight. I thought Hendricks won that fight 48-47 and it should have been unanimous decision. But having said that, 3 of the 5 rounds could have gone either way. Hendricks was more crowd pleasing (as he is a more crowd pleasing fighter), but in those 3 rounds you could have made the argument for St. Pierre in all 3. So in that right there it is 30-27 St. Pierre. Then you have to ask if Hendricks in either of the rounds he dominated did he win them 10-8? No he didn’t. 48-47, St. Pierre. 2 of the 3 judges saw it that way and I think it is completely understandable.
Now, maybe I’m being a homer for the Canadian. But I’m more worried about the UFC as a product being great than “good ol’ Canadian boys” winning. Add to that, GSP is from Quebec. They wanted to seperate from Canada just 20 years ago so it isn’t exactly your regular “hometown boy”, but having said that I’ll make no secret that I’m a big GSP guy. But getting back to the title of this piece for a second, this isn’t the first time we seen this happen in a title fight.
Before the 5th round came to a close, I said to my buddy that I could see this being just like Machida vs Shogun at UFC 104 was. Shogun DOMINATED that fight, but they gave the decision to Machida. Again, it went the full 5, and the judges (at least to me) were hesitant to be viewed as the ones who decided a title change. That was probably the most ridiculous judging decision that I’ve ever seen. Saturday’s fight was nowhere near that bad.
“Don’t ever leave it in the hands of the judges”. That’s an understatement! But it just couldn’t be more true and for Johnny Hendricks to celebrate the way he did after the fight was ridiculous because you simply don’t know. You fought 2 great rounds dude, but you hadn’t been awarded the belt, yet there he was celebrating like he had. Several of you will argue he should have been because he clearly won the fight. I agree he should have won the fight but in no way did he CLEARLY win the fight. I know GSP’s face was re-arranged, but that’s how Hendricks fights. He lands big, heavy shots. You don’t get more points because you hit the hardest. You’re more likely to knock a guy out, but it doesn’t get you more points.
Georges landed a lot of shots himself, had more take down’s, it wasn’t nearly as one sided as so many of you want to make it out to be. Hendricks will either simply be handed the interim belt (although I’m not certain if the UFC can do that even though that’s basically what happened with Ronda Rousey) or he’ll face someone for it (likely Robbie Lawler). So what has changed had he be awarded the decision other than physically being awarded the belt? Had the decision gone to Hendricks, GSP would have had the rematch immediately, and if he hadn’t of wanted it then Hendricks would have likely face Lawler next. Nothing changes.
So just chill about it people. Worst decisions have been made by the judges. I think Hendricks won, but I didn’t think it was clear cut and can see how someone would see it the other way. You get sick of hearing it but it is just so true…you leave it in the hands of the judges and you don’t know what can happen. You can only win the title via pinfall or submiss….I mean knockout or submission.
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