UFC: Ranking George St. Pierre's 12 Title Fight Wins

12. GSP vs. Johnny Hendricks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW75KX-ynyc It's a shame that GSP's final fight, and final title fight victory (in November 2013), resulted in a close split decision win over Johnny Hendricks. It didn't help that a fired up Dana White, upset over losing his biggest remaining star, made the situation even more controversial by picking sides in the contested decision, and siding with Hendricks. It's a move that made sense - Hendricks was the fighter whose career would continue, and White was responsible for promoting him - but it was still disrespectful to the former champion. Here's the key problem with this fight: most people who side with Hendricks are ignoring the fact that MMA is scored on a round by round 10 point must scoring system. There's no question that Hendricks won two rounds of this fight. There's also no question that GSP won two rounds. We won't even argue that Hendricks two rounds were more dominant than GSP's two rounds - but in the end, they each won two rounds clearly, and neither fighter did enough to be awarded a 10-8 round. Which means, in a five round fight, it all comes down to one round: the first round. And that's the problem - MMA is scored based on rounds, and in the first round, not much happened. Except that Georges St. Pierre had Johnny Hendricks in trouble. He attempted a submission. He drove the action. Hendricks found his stride later in the fight - then for some inexplicable reason, coasted in the fifth round, and his coaches actually allowed it to happen! Had he been stronger in the first, and not coasted in the fifth, this fight would have been his. Instead, St. Pierre beat him by winning three of five rounds, though not as dominantly as the two rounds Hendricks won. In the end, however, 3-2 still gives you the win. Sorry Johnny. You gave it your best, and came closer than anyone else, you just came up a tiny bit short.