St Pierre V Hendricks

Anyone watch that last night, not sure how they got to that decision.........

Was in Vegas for 166 v which was truly a great night , 168 should be a cracker too , but last nights was a strange one for me

It's a product of the scoring system.
Even though Hendricks won rounds 2 and 4 in a big way, did more damage and no doubt won the fight if it was judged overall, GSP out pointed him in rounds 3 and 5.
That meant it came down to round 1, which was probably the closest round. 2 judges scored it for GSP.
I scored round 1 for Hendricks myself, but I'm not too surprised. Takedowns were one a piece. GSP had dominant position for longer. Knees to the thigh generally don't score highly, and neither do elbows from a fighter pressed up against the cage (even though they cut GSP, they tend to be scored like strikes from the bottom). Compare that to GSP's jabs and a few (most partially blocked) head kicks.
I thought the weirdest thing was the post fight interview. GSP was really odd. Memory loss? Almost didn't say anything, then announces he's hanging up his gloves temporarily for unspecified personal reasons?
I didn't think Hendricks hit him that hard...

It was a close fight and I agree round one was the key.

The whole scoring system needs looking at, and the fact that 2 of the judges are boxing judges doesn't help

Dana went apeshit at the post fight presser at the commission.

I prefer how they judged the fights in Pride, where they looked at the fight as a whole rather than round by round.

Looking forward to the end of year card. Silva / wiedman rematch and Rousey and Tate.

I thought it was Hendricks fight........but hey what do I know, he did not have a mark on him.

theres a speculative tap out call from hendricks on utube from round one , dont have the link but its worth a search

I don't think so either.

I can't see the unified rules shifting to scoring fights as a whole (or changing to "attempts to finish" as a major category for that matter), so other options to avoid this sort of thing would be open score cards (K1 style) and/or the more liberal awarding of 10-8 rounds.
After all the 10 point must system was adopted from boxing, but there are no counts in MMA.
Effectively this means 10-8 rds are usually only awarded due to penalties or rounds where one fighter completely dominated and was on the verge of stopping the other fighter.
In a boxing match GSP would have got a standing count for his chicken legs in rd 2 and Hendricks would have scored a 10-8 rd. Instead it's scored exactly the same as the rounds in which very little damage went either way, and where GSP managed to slightly outwork Hendricks.