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UFC 167: St Pierre vs Hendricks


wandshogun09

Who wins and how?   

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Whilst I'm not saying your outcome prediction is wrong Jim, I personally think hendricks is a different beast to Alves. Whilst Alves was vicious at the time, I don't believe he possessed that devastating one punch KO that Hendricks possesses. On top of that, Alves in his previous fights did possess great takedown defence as you say, but the fact is Alves was taken down with complete ease at UFC 100 by GSP.

You see this thing about Hendricks being a KO beast I feel is a bit of a myth. He has power, but he it is not like he is a machine

 

- Kampmann came in flat footed, he was easy prey.

 

- Fitch, fair enough but if that fight had gotten going properly, I think Fitch would have won

 

Other than that he gone the distance, other than a few times. I feel people are overestimating his ability to land that one punch, its not like Fitch or Kampmann are on the same level as GSP in terms of slickness

 

 

David raised a good point about Alves, but it would serve only post 2009 in my view. Alves faced similar class of opponents that Hendricks had in his 2006-2009 run at the title GSP title shot, and only Koscheck and Alessio went the distance and both lost. Alves had a higher KO percentage by far and faced Chris Lytle is a handy boxer.

 

From a all round wrestling viewpoint, Hendricks is better. But defensive wrestling the 2009 Alves was a bit better than Hendricks, the guy shut down Koscheck for 15 mins. Alves had a lot of confidence at this stage, and found consistency he only lost it after GSP took his soul away in at UFC 100.

 

GSP is not going to ruffled on the night, Josh Koscheck, Matt Serra and Matt Hughes all ruffled him in theory, and he put on some of his best showings. Can Hendricks takedown GSP consistently? I say no, if Hendricks is laboring around with a Koscheck and Story and getting bettered, than I do not see how much he can offer GSP.

 

I am going to look like a right prat if Hendricks does win now ;)

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i wouldn't say Thiago Alves is in anyway shape or form a better wrestler than Johnny Hendricks. Hendricks is a 2 time NCAA Div. 1 Champion. If anyone wants to critisize his wrestling it has to be down to the fact that he's fallen in love with landing power shots, but as i said i feel Hendricks is going to come in more wrestling heavy and if GSP can out wrestle him whilst he is i will be uber-impressed.

 

I can't wait for this.

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Like I said Alves shut down Koscheck and Hughes takedowns/wrestling, something Hendricks failed to do with Koscheck to a great degree. Again I am going on the 2009 version of Alves, when he peaked

 

Credentials usually are a fair reflection, but not there. In the Koscheck fight it was a grappling match pretty much, you could not say that Hendricks was neglecting his wrestling for his love of landing shots.

 

GSP is on another level in the wrestling stakes anyway.

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Like I said Alves shut down Koscheck and Hughes takedowns/wrestling, something Hendricks failed to do with Koscheck to a great degree. Again I am going on the 2009 version of Alves, when he peaked

 

Credentials usually are a fair reflection, but not there. In the Koscheck fight it was a grappling match pretty much, you could not say that Hendricks was neglecting his wrestling for his love of landing shots.

 

GSP is on another level in the wrestling stakes anyway.

 

This is the thing, there's a massive difference between someone stuffing takedowns and stuffing takedowns whilst countering with wrestling of his/her own. You're right in that Alves was defending his take downs brilliantly against Koscheck, better than Hendricks was. However, Alves wasn't attempting to takedown Kosheck and thus made it into a stand up fight.

 

As it became a grappling contest between Koshceck and Hendricks, they both sort of leave gaps open to be taken down since they are both exceptional at it. Sometimes they each cancel each other out and it automatically becomes a stand up fight, but in that instance it didn't.

 

On top of that, you are also going back 4 years and a lot has changed since then. Hendricks has grown in stature and confidence whilst GSP has come through 2 tough fights after serious knee surgery.

 

As Ebb says, I can't wait for it.

 

Edit:- A good comparison would actually be how each performed against Condit. Who was more impressive? If I'm brutally honest, I watched the Hendricks/Condit fight and I remember it only vaguely. I remember Hendricks varying up his game and throwing Condit right off, but I can't really remember if it was closer than the Condit/GSP fight where despite Condit get the near finish, it was quite one sided I thought.

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Okay I can concede slightly there, a grappling match will lead to more openings. But still, Alves turned his fight with Kos into his fight, Hendricks if he is a KO machine was unable to do that with Koscheck, and almost lost as a result. It turned into the fight Koscheck wanted, surely if Hendricks is a one hit power guy he would want space for himself to land that shot. Or he is not much of a octagon general? Either way it does not reflect very well on him in my opinion.

 

GSP may have lost steam in 4 years, but I see nothing in Hendricks that has not been seen before, he has faced more diverse strikers, just as powerful one hit punchers, just as good grapplers/wrestlers and much more well rounded fighters.

 

I am looking forward to it though as well

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I think the big difference though Jim was that Koscheck when he faced Alves, wasn't really renowned for his striking. It was pretty much after that fight Koscheck himself started to land bombs and begin to believe he too possessed this one punch KO power. At one point Koscheck forgot about his wrestling in favour of standing up. This would obviously weigh on Hendrick's mind when he faced Koscheck.

 

Basically, it's very difficult judging an opponents performance from years gone by as a lot of fighters change and develop their skills and become very different fighters.

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I would say the Koscheck that Alves faced in late 2008, was a much younger and fresher fighter than the one Hendrikcs faced. But you have a point, Koscheck only started switching up his boxing proper in 2009, he was still a work in progress when Paulo Thiago walloped him.

 

Either way, my key point is that I do not get the Hendricks hype at all.

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I would say the Koscheck that Alves faced in late 2008, was a much younger and fresher fighter than the one Hendrikcs faced. But you have a point, Koscheck only started switching up his boxing proper in 2009, he was still a work in progress when Paulo Thiago walloped him.

 

Either way, my key point is that I do not get the Hendricks hype at all.

 

Yep, neither did Fitch :laugh:

 

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Another thing to remember re: Alves vs Koscheck is, while it was an impressive performance from Alves, Koscheck took that fight on short notice as well. It was originally supposed to be Alves vs Diego Sanchez (imagine that fight!) at UFC 90. So Koscheck wouldn't have came into that fight quite as sharp as usual.

 

Still, it was a great show of takedown defence from Alves. He was excellent at that in his day. And while GSP was able to take Alves down repeatedly, Alves was able to keep getting up. Kind of like JDS vs Cain in the second fight. He wasn't able to stop the takedown but he did a great job of getting back to his feet.

 

Wrestling wise though, Hendricks is obviously way more experienced and advanced. And no doubt, for this fight specifically, he'll have upped his wrestling training.

 

Edit:- A good comparison would actually be how each performed against Condit. Who was more impressive? If I'm brutally honest, I watched the Hendricks/Condit fight and I remember it only vaguely. I remember Hendricks varying up his game and throwing Condit right off, but I can't really remember if it was closer than the Condit/GSP fight where despite Condit get the near finish, it was quite one sided I thought.

 

Yeah, GSP vs Condit was one way traffic for all but about a two minute spell in the third round. Hendricks vs Condit was a lot closer. In fact, although I did score it for Hendricks, I thought there was even an argument that Condit won that fight because he seemed to land more of the cleaner strikes to me, and when he was taken down he did more from the bottom than Hendricks did on top. Great fight though. Probably top 10 this year for me.

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