Coaching Points from the Georges St. Pierre-Hendricks Fight

In Sports by Brock Bourgase

gsp-hendricks-scorecard

Some preliminary thoughts about GSP’s narrow decision victory:

  1.  It was reasonably apparent that GSP won the 3rd and the 5th rounds and Hendricks won the 2nd and the 4th.
  2. Previous N.S.A.C. decisions have shown that you have to beat the champion soundly to dethrone them by decision (for example, Henderson-Edgar II).
  3. First impression bias (like that first takedown GSP scored at the beginning of the fight) can make powerful impressions on some people.

You have to try and win the fight/game/match/contest as clearly as possible.

I don’t think that Hendricks’ corner should have told him that he was up 2-0 after the first two rounds.  I personally agreed with that scoring but I could see how the judges might have split the first two rounds.  And they shouldn’t have treated the fifth round like they just had to survive; Hendricks should have been told that it was a tied fight and fought accordingly.

Like Ric Flair said, “To be the man, you have the beat the man” (clearly).