GSP defeats Condit to retain the title; Hendricks makes a brutal statment.

In what will likely go down as one of the best welterweight title fights since the titles inception, Georges St-Pierre defeated Carlos Condit via unanimous decision.

After thoroughly thinking of all the UFC title fights at 170 lbs, the only fight I would put above it was the epic showdown of Carlos Newton vs Matt Hughes. A clash that featured superlative grappling and two guys being out cold by the end of the bout (Newton from the power bomb; Hughes from a triangle choke).

At first, it seemed like it was going to be GSP doing what he does best, which is ground and pound. One of my main criticisms of the GSP-Hardy bout was that GSP focused way too much on positional grappling and attempting to get a submission, as opposed to tight short strikes. Condit was doing a decent job on the bottom in the first two frames, regaining guard and trying to throw stuff from underneath, but GSP’s elbows marked up Condit badly.

What the fight will be remembered the most for is the 3rd round, which featured Condit landing a left high kick that put GSP down to the mat. Condit, briefly was on top, trying to put the final nails in the coffin. Unfortunately for Condit, GSP recovered after a minute and reversed the position. GSP used his wrestling to beat Condit in the following two rounds to take the decision.

In my view, it will surely be seen as the most interesting of all the GSP title fights. He survived adversity, he did not mentally break, and he put a brutal pounding on the dangerous Condit. Interestingly enough, GSP’s face was marked up badly and FightMetric statistics actually revealed that Condit landed more total strikes (a lot of those strikes were from Condit being on the bottom). But when it came to significant strikes, GSP far outlanded Condit.

After the title clash, GSP remains unsure of where he will go next. If he’s so hesitant to fight Anderson Silva in a super fight, let’s just have GSP vs Johny Hendricks in the spring. We went 18 months with the welterweight crown being MIA, let’s try to have another title clash as soon as possible.

——————————————————————-

Johny Hendricks made a statement at UFC 154, and it was a scary one. Martin Kampmann has lost via TKO before to  Marquardt and Daley. But it took Marquardt a brilliant Tekken style combo to put him down and Daley threw everything at him, yet still couldn’t bring him down. For Hendricks, it took one shot to put Kampmann out cold and stiff on the ground in the first round.

It was brutal and to the point, with this win, Hendricks should get a direct title shot to GSP’s crown. With wins over Mike Pierce, Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, and Martin Kampmann, no one out there has a better argument for a title shot than Hendricks. Some argue that Hendricks vs Diaz should be next, but I would rather see GSP vs Hendricks next, and have Diaz fight another top contender. The wrestling is still a concern for Hendricks, it was just May when Koscheck took Hendricks down and held him there during the third frame. But the power that Hendricks packs is insane. He put an end to Kampmann’s fighter of the year aspirations, he next wants to put an end to GSP’s legendary title reign.