Picking Johny “Big Rig” Hendricks to beat Jon Fitch at UFC 141 last night is one thing, but did anyone throw their balls to the wall and predict it happening in the first 12 seconds of the fight?
No?
Well, I didn’t either.
Truthfully, as much as I wanted Hendricks to somehow win, I actually had Fitch winning the bout in the same fashion that he always wins fights.
Also, Fitch had the reach and the height on Hendricks, so the question before the fight was whether or not Hendricks would even be able to land anything on Fitch from up close before Fitch shot in for a takedown.
Not only did Hendricks land a clean left hand on Fitch, but also of note is that Fitch never was able to shoot for a takedown once before the fight ended.
Hendricks had the left hand ready to unload at a moment’s notice, but the wide expectation was in favor of Fitch’s smothering top control to be the contributing factor towards the second loss of Hendrick’s career.
What does the stunning 12-second upset win and Knockout of the Night recipient mean for Hendricks and especially Fitch, the latter of whom is now 13-2-1 under the UFC banner?
For Hendricks, it might mean the chance of a lifetime to prove that he is still every bit of the prospect that we all thought he was back in 2009, but talks of a title shot anytime soon are premature until the Georges St-Pierre-Nick Diaz-Carlos Condit saga is settled, pending any unforeseen injuries.
As for Fitch, his loss means a trip back to the drawing board as well as a bit of a liberation for the division, as Fitch was seen as the best welterweight in the world besides GSP, and most publications felt he was pound-for-pound one of the top fighters in the world despite Condit’s and Diaz’s respective accomplishments recently.
Only time will tell what the future holds for Fitch and Hendricks, but if things were not looking up for Hendricks before, they are definitely looking up for him right now.
One thing is a definite, though: nobody got any shot to sleep during that Fitch fight, and anyone that did missed the first bout since 2007 in which a finish finally happened in a Fitch fight.
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