Are you familiar with Johny's collegiate career?
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I disagree with the decision, but this was not a robbery.

GSP won the 3rd and 5th rounds, so it was close. The 1st round depends on how you judge these things, I thought Hendricks had more effective strikes in the 1st round (GSP's face wasn't F'd up yet) so I would have given the fight to him 48-47, but if you look at the first round as just a rules-based point-scoring contest, GSP may have out-pointed him in some eyes. Also, if the first round is close and no one is hurt, the defending champ is often going to get the first round.

Dana White is hilariously entertaining to watch, but he went overboard on this. If you gave round one to GSP, you can't go back later with an eraser and switch it because GSP's face was messed up after the fight.

Next time, Johny shouldn't hold back. Finish him and don't let it get to a decision.
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I just know he was an outstanding wrestler. I guess I'm missing your point.
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Hendricks became one of the more well-known and popular guys in college wrestling due to him "becoming a villain".
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Ahh, that makes sense. So it's likely just a marketing thing he's trying to do like Chael did. The odd thing about Chael is that it ended up making him liked in the end, it was almost like a Stone Cold type gimmick where the bad guy turns good but still does the same shit.
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In college, he was just genuinely hated and was pretty much like "Eh, fuck it".


Really stemmed from his victory over Churella (although most east coast guys hated him anyways for how he wrestled Troy Letters), although running around with the OSU flag while the 157 awards were going on didn't help his case.
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Askren/Hendricks: Love them, hate them; we will miss them

This is a cool article from a while ago about Henricks being a villian and Ben Askren being the hero from their days in college.
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Round 1- Hendricks had a few heavy shots but was hit something like 36 to 16 not including being kicked in the face and mid section 10 times at least.

GSP won third round by out hitting him, take downs and controlled the round.

5th round GSP took him down twice and once again out hit him. He couldn't keep him down but he was still the more active fighter. You are NOT going to take th belt from the champ by geting out struck and taken down twice in the final round no matter how much you show boat, complain, whine and dance around like your dream just came true.

GSP got cut with an elbow after he tripped himself up and johnny got him down breifly. Gsp landed nearly triple kicks, prob double the punches and was ahead by one take down.

It was a classice Thomas Hearns power VS Sugar Ray-finese- fight even though GSP landed many many hard shots.

GSP won this fight, took the best Hendricks had and was more crisp the last round.

Hendricks needs to shutup- he lost and is showing zero class.

Dana white is trying to sell tickets- he is backstabbing GSP even though the guys had been the best producer for years. White is a DBag. He was already pimping a rematch the second the RIGHT decixion came in. But that is his job. :-)
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Very good post.


I think too many people that watch MMA do what Rogan said he does while commentating and just take it all in as one big fight instead of breaking it down by rounds and that's where the backlash occurs like with this fight and JJ/Gusta.

That and people usually have a rooting interest in a guy so they like to bitch if it's close.
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I think Hendricks should have been way more agressive the 5th round. If he would have taken GSP down twice instead of the other way around-he would have the belt.
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and this is how GSP was given the first round. (The strikes were a heck of a lot closer than 36-16 btw, but that doesn't matter)

If you focus mostly on tallying up numbers, you may be inclined to give it to GSP, but those things are merely a tiebreaker for me. There's a reason why almost every single member of the media gave the round to Hendricks. Dana alluded to it in his rantings, but this is not really a game, this is a fight. If one guy is hurt more than the other, he should probably lose the round. If it was pretty much even then go ahead and start counting up points for the round.

GSP had several light strikes, a couple takedowns to Johny's 1, and a submission attempt, but Hendricks clearly hurt GSP, and that should have been enough to win the round.

I agree it was close, not a robbery, and Dana went overboard, but GSP should not have won the fight.
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In your opinion. In my opinion GSP won 3-2 which is what I called before they announced the winner. It was close and could have gone either way, but I'm not going to say definitively say GSP won the fight. It was going to be 3-2 either way. This wasn't a Pacquio/Bradley type decision and I think Dana was more butt hurt over GSP talking about a leave from absence when Dana was already counting bank on a rematch. GSP is a stand up guy and good dude, and Dana made him out to be Tito Ortiz/Nick Diaz.
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Well, it was also the majority opinion by quite a bit. Everyone in the internet media who liveblogged the event gave the round to Hendricks (so no revisionist history going on), and there was apparently only two credentialed members of the media at MGM who gave it to GSP, everyone else at the site saw it the other way.

But yeah, this wasn't like those incredibly bad recent boxing decisions.
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I think that's plausible to a degree a few years ago but not as likely anymore. The last large organization to score fights like that was Pride and that isn't a factor for most fans (since they've never heard of it).

I think more people were just shocked Johny had such a tremendous fight against GSP and because of that, they consistently viewed things in his favor. I thought Hendricks won but it's a close enough fight that I'm not claiming robbery (see Garcia/Nam, Ninja/Rampage, etc.)
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I guess I'm talking about more casual fans. People that just want to see a bar room brawl with no appreciation for the technical and strategic aspects of the sport. They view it as if the entire 25 minutes just happened outside the local pub and since Billy Bob had more marks on his face than Johnny Bob he must have lost the fight.
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