More judging controversy in the UFC as St Pierre retains his title over Hendricks.

More judging controversy in the UFC as St Pierre retains his title over Hendricks.

That bright star in MMA we all know as the UFC shined a little dimmer after Saturday night. Why? Because the worlds fastest growing sport was left licking their wounds, in light of another controversial judging decision.

In the MGM Grand Arena n Las Vegas, at the 20th anniversary show. The main event between Georges St Pierre and Johnny Hendricks, a fight that was billed as St Pierre’s toughest test yet. Ended in a split decision 48-47, 47-48, 48-47 win for champion St Pierre, with many claiming Hendricks was robbed.

What made it even worse was, after the decision, a clearly battered and bruised Georges St Pierre, who admitted to losing a bit of memory of the fight. Promptly stated he was looking to “hang up his gloves” for a bit, due to issues in his personal life.

Now, as I do, I watched the fight back twice. First of all, let me just say although I thought Hendricks won, under no circumstances do I think this decision was as bad as the Jones v Gustafsson fight, and that was close.

In my opinion, Johny Hendricks won the first, second and fourth rounds and St Pierre won the third and fifth rounds.

But to give a little indication of just how close this fight was. Many have said St Pierre won the first round, the fourth was close and Hendricks won the fifth round.

This fight was really close and you have to remember the champion will more often than not get the decision in a close fight, and rightly so. The champion is the champion for a reason and the challenger has to clearly win the fight, to take the belt from the champion.

As stated, this was in no way as bad as the Jones v Gustafsson fight, where Gustafsson clearly won the first three rounds. At the end of the fight, to me it looked as though Hendricks camp clearly thought they won and St Pierre’s camp thought they may have lost.

If you look at the faces of both fighters you could clearly see Hendricks did more damage.

But although a lot of fans are using that as an indication of how the fight went, that is by no means accurate.

Hendricks and St Pierre are two totally different fighters. Hendricks is a powerfully strong puncher with knockout power in both hands but also an accomplished wrestler.

St Pierre is a technically gifted fighter with great take downs, tremendous movement, precision jabs and straight accurate punches.

When it comes to the judging. Fights are not judged on who did the most damage. When a fight goes the distance, it is mainly judged on accurate / significant strikes, superior grappling, take downs and octagon control.

On top of this, when it comes to the difference in the damage done to both fighters. St Pierre has been in the game way longer than Hendricks and his face and body has had to withstand more damage, which means he has more scar tissue, making him susceptible to cuts and swelling.

To add to this, during the first round of the fight, St Pierre broke BJ Penn’s record of spending the most minutes in a UFC cage. This I believe now stands at over 5 hours and 20 minutes. That is a lot of time doing hand to hand combat. Nevertheless, I still think Hendricks deserved to win the fight.

But it certainly wasn’t a robbery which most are claiming. People no less than UFC president Dana White, who I thought irresponsibly and speaking off emotion alone, claimed Nevada to be the “worst commission on the planet”.

He also went on to say “Georges knew he lost” the commission was “despicably wrong” and St Pierre owes the UFC and cannot retire.

Though I am not the Nevada state athletic commissions biggest fan. I totally disagreed with White in these statements, mainly because he wasn’t nearly as outraged at the Jones/Gustafsson fight and not once did he say his usual line of “never leave it in the hands of the judges”.

Nobody knows what is going on in St Pierre’s private life but I hope he doesn’t retire and grants Hendricks a rematch. Even though White did state Gustafsson would get an instant rematch against Jones, but unfortunately we now hear Jones’s next fight will be against the Brazilian Glover Teixeira.

St Pierre has modeled him self as a consummate professional, an icon in the sport and a role model for the people.

If he really wants to live up to those titles, in the interest of the sport he will put off his retirement and give Hendricks a rematch.

Not because Dana White said so and seemed to be demanding it, but because it would be the right thing to do for the millions of UFC fans.