Johny Hendricks is the uncrowned king of the welterweight division according to a lot of people, narrowly dropping a split decision to former champion Georges St. Pierre that many felt was his. Now Hendricks gets a second shot at the title with GSP’s vacancy and pseudo-retirement as he faces Robbie Lawler for the chance to hold UFC gold once again.
Fight Breakdown – One guy’s a heavy handed slugger with a strong wrestling base who cuts a ton of weight to make 170. And the other guy … he’s kind of similar in that he’s got a strong wrestling base, cuts a ton of weight and has heavy hands.
Look for Johny Hendricks to approach this fight like he did the Condit fight; do enough to win on his feet and then grab takedowns to rack up rounds. Look for him to box with Lawler and go for the takedown. Depending on Lawler’s takedown defense this could be either a gunfight or a 25 minute grind session.
I think he learned a lesson from the GSP fight in that he can’t just expect to get close rounds; he has to do enough. The one downside to the 10-9 system is that you can’t just win a round; you have to look like you won it as well. Hendricks isn’t going to blow Lawler out of the water for all five rounds … but if he can keep the striking even and notch a takedown or two every round he’ll win the fight.
That’ll be the key; Hendricks has gotten lucky in getting a handful of split decisions but didn’t get one against GSP because he lost three rounds on two scorecards but not by much. When he goes back and watches that fight he probably saw that he didn’t do enough to get the win because the fight was fairly even overall. He may have one at least three rounds on a lot of people’s scorecards but he didn’t win by a large margin. He can win by a small margin but when you live by the split decision you can also die by it; he has to take at least three rounds and do so by a noticeable margin.
It’s something Hendricks will be aware of and look for him to replicate the Condit strategy. He’s a good enough boxer to get the edge and if he can secure a takedown and at least a minute of top control per round he can notch a win.
Lawler’s strategy is going to replicate that as well; he’s at his best when he can sprawl & brawl, getting the occasional takedown per round if it’s close. The problem is that Hendricks has a better pedigree of wrestling and is tough to takedown. Look for Lawler to try and goad Hendricks into throwing one of his big, looping lefts. Hendricks gets taken down when people can get his timing and hit the level change as he’s losing his balance with those big punches.
Why it matters – It’s for a UFC title, for starters, and that’s usually enough. But there’s something historical that is guaranteed to happen in the newness of the champion.
No one has held the UFC welterweight title, properly, in six years that wasn’t named GSP. Carlos Condit held an interim title, of course, but no one besides Georges St. Pierre has been atop the division officially since April 2008. You take out the brief moment Matt Serra held the title and GSP’s reign atop the division goes back to 2006 and from 2006 to 2014 GSP had only one fight (Josh Koscheck in 2007) that didn’t involve a championship title being involved.
For comparison sake: In April 2008 Lawler was the EliteXC middleweight champion and Hendricks was just starting out his MMA career after a stellar wrestling campaign at Oklahoma State. So there’s a level of history being made here in that we’re going to have someone new at the top of the weight class on an official basis for the first time since George Bush was president.
The winner here is potentially involved in the next era of a division.
Prediction – Hendricks
