Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

UFC 167: St-Pierre vs. Hendricks (11/16/2013) - Las Vegas, NV (MGM Grand Garden Arena)


Elsalvajeloco

Recommended Posts

I don't consider stating the truth to be whining.  

 

 

I really don't get the outcry about the decision.  It's like people have no idea whatsoever how the scoring system works.  Round 1 is not a round that is lopsided for either guy.  It's a really close round that could go either way.  2-5 are easily split between the two fighters. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Round 1 is a legit toss up. Rounds 2,3,4,5 are all easier to score. If this was "Pride style" judging based on the fight as a whole, Hendricks would get it for sure. But on the 10 Point Must System, GSP can barely win 3 rounds, lose the other 2 very convincingly and still win the fight... it kind of sucks, but it's the system MMA is likley stuck with unless they start to allow scoring .5 rounds or start handing out more 10-8 rounds, both of which have their own drawbacks.

 

00GSPStats.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How do you not understand the outcry? 98% of the people who cover the sport for a living gave the fight to Johnny. I just don't understand the people who say people shouldn't be mad about this decision. 

 

Because I understand the scoring system.  Seriously, this is like the people that watch a close fight and at then end when a guy wins a unanimous decision 3 rounds to 2 they say "I think it should have been a split decision".  It's really that stupid.    

 

If you're going to give three rounds to Hendricks two of them can't be 3 or 5 because anyone watching those rounds would understand that Johny didn't do enough to win those rounds.  So when you call bullshit you're essentially saying "there's no fucking way GSP could have won round 1" and that makes it even more stupid because that round was a tossup.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it really a tossup if everybody judged it for Hendricks?? This argument could go on forever, but when almost every reporter gave round 1 to Hendricks it's not just a coincidence. 

 

It's pretty simple.  People watch the fight as a whole and decide Johny won the fight because if it was just 25 minutes of fighting then yeah of course Johny won that fight, and then they assign the round scores to make that work out.  It just shows people's ignorance of the scoring system.  If it was a 1 round fight that ended after that first round you'd most likely have everybody split down the middle on who won the fight but people let Johny's dominance in the second and fourth rounds affect their judgement on the outcome of round one after the fact.  

 

In an effort to find what reporters scored each round I ran across an article on bleacherreport about the closeness of the fight that had a poll on "how did you score the fight" and with just under 6000 votes it had 43% of the votes scoring it 48-47 GSP and 33% scoring it 48-47 Hendricks.  That means about as much as what some reporters say they scored the fight which is nothing.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus, was the main event a give back to Lawler winning by Split DEC over Rory?  St. Pierre's face was hamburger but "Compubox" numbers were in Rush's favor from what I saw.  I can see from a statistics standpoint that GSP squeaked out that fight, but wow, my gut says that Johnny should be champ now.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

GSP utilized volume striking, none of which was even particularly effective.

 

And lets touch on scoring, shall we?

 

 

 

 
  1. All bouts will be evaluated and scored by 3 judges who shall evaluate the contest from different location around the ring/fighting area. The referee may not be one of the 3 judges.
  2. The 10-Point Must System will be the standard system of scoring a bout. Under the 10-Point Must Scoring System, 10 points must be awarded to the winner of the round and 9 points or less must be awarded to the loser, except for a rare even round, which is scored (10-10).
  3. Judges shall evaluate mixed martial arts techniques, such as effective striking, effective grappling, control of the ring/fighting area, effective aggressiveness and defense.
  4. Evaluations shall be made in the order in which the techniques appear in © above, giving the most weight in scoring to effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area and effective aggressiveness and defense.
  5. Effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal strikes landed by a contestant.
  6. Effective grappling is judged by considering the amount of successful executions of a legal takedown and reversals. Examples of factors to consider are take downs from standing position to mount position, passing the guard to mount position, and bottom position fighters using an active threatening guard.
  7. Fighting area control is judged by determining who is dictating the pace, location and position of the bout. Examples of factors to consider are countering a grappler's attempt at takedown by remaining standing and legally striking, taking down an opponent to force a ground fight, creating threatening submission attempts, passing the guard to achieve mount, and creating striking opportunities.
  8. Effective aggressiveness means moving forward and landing a legal strike.
  9. Effective defense means avoiding being struck, taken down or reversed while countering with offensive attacks.
  10. The following objective scoring criteria shall be utilized by the judges when scoring a round:
    1. a round is to be scored as a 10-10 round when both contestants appear to be fighting evenly and neither contestant shows clear dominance in a round;
    2. a round is to be scored as a 10-9 round when a contestant wins by a close margin, landing the greater number of effective legal strikes, grappling and other maneuvers;
    3. a round is to be scored as a 10-8 round when a contestant overwhelmingly dominates by striking or grappling in a round.
    4. a round is to be scored as a 10-7 round when a contestant totally dominates by striking or grappling in a round.
  11. Judges shall use a sliding scale and recognize the length of time the fighters are either standing or on the ground, as follows:
    1. if the mixed martial artists spent a majority of a round on the canvas, then:
      1. Effective grappling is weighed first; and
      2. Effective striking is then weighed
    2. If the mixed martial artists spent a majority of a round standing, then:
      1. Effective striking is weighed first; and
      2. Effective grappling is then weighed
    3. A round is to be scored as a 10-8 round when a contestant overwhelmingly dominates by striking or grappling in a round.
    4. If a round ends with a relatively even amount of standing and canvas fighting, striking and grappling are weighed equally.

 

So what do we take away from this? To start, it states that the judges evaluate MMA techniques, such as effective striking, effective grappling, control of the ring, effective aggressiveness and defense. While GSP may have had a higher volume of strikes, were they all that effective in damaging the Baconator? No, they weren't. Johny was particularly effective in defending against those strikes and counter-punching. Not only that, he was the aggressor for all rounds, except for 3 and 5. He was the one who kept coming forward, backing GSP up and upon being put up against the fence by GSP, he would wind up putting GSP up against the fence, and on some occasions, would take GSP down. If you go off of this criteria when looking at it on a round by round basis, Johny wins hands down, regardless of the number of strikes GSP threw in rounds 3 and 5.

 

Then you add in Fightmetric, which goes beyond the eyeball test, and GSP didn't even outstrike Hendricks in any round, except round 3. And in round 3, who lead in grappling? Hendricks did, and you don't even need Fightmetric to tell you that, not that it necessarily outweighs GSP's effective striking or anything, but it's something worth pointing out.

 

The Fightmetric effectiveness score is so lopsided too in Hendricks' favor.

 

The more I think about that fight, even after re-watching it, the more absurd it is to see that GSP won. It's a huge pile of bullshit and I have to question someone's bias if they want to say anything different given what is factually true about that fight and the judging process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of people seem to be judging the fight on the fact that GSP's face was a mess, but facial damage is not part of scoring a fight under the current rules. Some guys like GSP, Nick Diaz, and Fedor have paper skin, they mark up, bruise, and cut super easily and some guys like Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, and apparently Hendricks don't seem to ever cut, bruise, or mark up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was the first round close in your opinion or not?

Did you have any 10-8 rounds?

To go as far as to try to change the weight of what was happening in the fight to suggest that Johny should have won the third and fifth round potentially is completely ridiculous. So gsp controls the third round completely for four minutes and Hendricks does nothing but stand there and get punched in the face with no defense but you want to give him the round because he scored a takedown at the end of the round that gsp popped right back up from? Based on effective grappling? Lol at that.

Lost in this is the fact that Hendricks didn't deserve to win the fight. He had the champ legit hurt in the second round and then backed off and coasted at the end of the round and the entire third round. He hurt Georges again in the fourth and again took the last round off. You can't take rounds off like that especially against the champion and expect to win.

He didn't have a 10-8 round and he sure as hell didn't do enough to win the third or the fifth round so it goes back to the first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sure, that's part of it, but Hendricks was also the more effective striker and grappler in that fight.

For two of the five rounds he was.

Also how could you ever call Hendricks the more effective grappler in that fight? He didn't have as many takedowns and gsp had a submission attempt in the first round. Talk about bias.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of people seem to be judging the fight on the fact that GSP's face was a mess, but facial damage is not part of scoring a fight under the current rules. Some guys like GSP, Nick Diaz, and Fedor have paper skin, they mark up, bruise, and cut super easily and some guys like Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, and apparently Hendricks don't seem to ever cut, bruise, or mark up.

This is so true, I've played sports all my life, spent most of my childhood falling off of my bike and wrestling with my friends, and I've had maybe 3 bruises in my entire life.  I broke my arm and it didn't bruise.  My sister bruises if she sits down too hard.  Judging a fight by who looks like they got the worst of it is just stupid, some people just don't mark up. 

 

As far as the restatement of the rules goes, I don't think it really proves your point. 

  1. Effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal strikes landed by a contestant.
  2. Effective grappling is judged by considering the amount of successful executions of a legal takedown and reversals. Examples of factors to consider are take downs from standing position to mount position, passing the guard to mount position, and bottom position fighters using an active threatening guard.
  3. Fighting area control is judged by determining who is dictating the pace, location and position of the bout. Examples of factors to consider are countering a grappler's attempt at takedown by remaining standing and legally striking, taking down an opponent to force a ground fight, creating threatening submission attempts, passing the guard to achieve mount, and creating striking opportunities.
  4. Effective aggressiveness means moving forward and landing a legal strike.
  5. Effective defense means avoiding being struck, taken down or reversed while countering with offensive attacks.

No sane person is arguing the judging of any of the last four rounds. So are you saying that it is inconceivable based on the wording above that a judge could have scored the first round for GSP?  I don't think GSP won the first round, but I'm not going to sit here and act like the judges ran up on Johnny Hendricks like Omar and took it from him.  It was a closely contested fight that came down to a single closely contested round.  It sucks for Hendricks, but to be the man you got to beat the man, and if prizefighting has taught us anything, close won't cut it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of people seem to be judging the fight on the fact that GSP's face was a mess, but facial damage is not part of scoring a fight under the current rules.

 

If you don't take physical debilitation into consideration, then what constitutes "effective striking" in MMA?  Even the "legal strike" verbage seems vague to me.  What good is it to land a blow if your opponant doesn't eventually show the effects of multiple strikes?

 

I would hope that MMA would fall into the bunches of punches trap that Boxing tripped years ago.  If Volume <> Damage then it is not "effecting striking" IMO, but I don't write the rules or get paid to interpret them.

 

As bad as I feel for Hendricks, he only has himself to blame.  Never leave a championship decision in the judges' collective hands.  Win your belt by pounding out the champ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

A lot of people seem to be judging the fight on the fact that GSP's face was a mess, but facial damage is not part of scoring a fight under the current rules.

 

If you don't take physical debilitation into consideration, then what constitutes "effective striking" in MMA?  Even the "legal strike" verbage seems vague to me.  What good is it to land a blow if your opponant doesn't eventually show the effects of multiple strikes?

 

I would hope that MMA would fall into the bunches of punches trap that Boxing tripped years ago.  If Volume <> Damage then it is not "effecting striking" IMO, but I don't write the rules or get paid to interpret them.

 

As bad as I feel for Hendricks, he only has himself to blame.  Never leave a championship decision in the judges' collective hands.  Win your belt by pounding out the champ.

 

 

A fight ending cut or a completely closed eye is one thing. Small marks, bruises and cuts are totally different. None of the damage that Hendricks did to GSP was fight ending, it was merely a product of GSP's thin skin. A good example of this is the Fedor/Cro Cop fight back in the Pride days. Fedor won the fight, easily. But at the end of the fight he looked like he went through a meat grinder, while Cro Cop didn't look much worse for wear. If you were to just show people that didn't see the fight pictures of them from after the fight and ask "who won?" 10 out of 10 people would pick Cro Cop.  Aside from fight ending damage, facial cuts/bruises/marks don't always tell the story of the fight.

 

So many people were just quick to jump on the images of GSP after the fight and say "see he, lost!" when really it was much closer than their physical appearances from after the fight would suggest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So if everyone can pretty much agree that round one is a toss up shouldn't it then go down at 10-10 making the fight a tie...is that a better out come?

I would have no problem with this, but apparently 10-10 rounds are frowned upon by influential people with the athletic commissions, especially in Nevada. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really know the answer to this question, but why does Dana have his panties in such a twist that GSP wants to take some time off? If his heart's not in fighting right now for whatever reason, he shouldn't have to fight, even if a rematch wiith Hendricks is a license to print money. If he doesn't wanna make that money, so what?

 

That said, he should formally retire and give up the belt. Then if he wants to come back, he's a challenger. No interim champions while he finds his smile.

 

Of course, if this is all bargaining tactic on GSP's part, in the words of Emily Latella, "never mind."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...