In short, Johny Hendricks is a good fighter and will beat Georges St. Pierre one day, even if it’s only in our dreams. But as long as he holds the UFC Welterweight title, Hendricks will not surpass the UFC’s Interim Welterweight Champion Carlos Condit as the man to beat the best GSP we’re ever going to see.
Now, that’s not to say Carlos Condit will beat GSP the way many thought Nick Diaz would, but that is to bring out a deceased debate about Hendricks’ UFC 141 bout with Jon Fitch.
You will recall as well as I do that Fitch was the odds-on favorite to beat Hendricks, and that even some strong supporters of Hendricks found themselves picking Fitch to prevail because of Fitch’s history of taking good fighters down and neutralizing their strengths to the point of fans wondering if the supposed strengths were ever existent in Fitch’s opponent.
Hendricks was as strong an opponent as anyone Fitch had faced aside from GSP, but on paper, his UFC 141 bout with Jon Fitch played out similarly to the way in which Mike Pierce’s UFC 107 bout against Fitch played out, and thus, a similar result was expected.
That said, even a few Fitch supporters gave Hendricks a chance to beat Fitch, even if by knockout, but not even the biggest detractors of Jon Fitch could have found the quick 12-second knockout.
That knockout initially had people wondering “Did I really just see that?” But then the hype for UFC 141 died down and then some questioned if Hendricks could do it to Fitch again in a rematch.
The man who defeats GSP shouldn’t ever get a big win, even a quick one, and have it come under fire as a fluke, should he?
Maybe he shouldn’t, or it’s possible that there’s some good in people believing it was a fluke KO over Fitch.
After all, what if Hendricks can bring something to GSP that Condit will not be able to?
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