UFC 171: Hendricks vs. Lawler

UFC 171: Hendricks vs. Lawler
Saturday, March 15, 2014
From the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas
Live on Pay-Per-View at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT

Main Event:

UFC Welterweight Championship: Johny Hendricks (#1) vs. Robbie Lawler (#3)

Main Card Bouts:

Welterweight Bout: Carlos Condit (#2) vs. Tyron Woodley (#11)

Lightweight Bout: Diego Sanchez (#15) vs. Myles Jury

Welterweight Bout: Jake Shields (#6) vs. Hector Lombard (#12)

Light Heavyweight Bout: Ovince St-Preux vs. Nikita Krylov

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on FOX Sports 2 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT)

Welterweight Bout: Kelvin Gastelum vs. Rick Story (#14)

Women's Bantamweight Bout: Raquel Pennington (#13) vs. Jessica Andrade (#9)

Featherweight Bout: Dennis Bermudez (#12) vs. Jimy Hettes

Welterweight Bout: Sean Spencer vs. Alex Garcia

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on UFC Fight Pass at 6 PM ET / 3 PM PT)

Lightweight Bout: Renee Forte vs. Francisco Trevino

Flyweight Bout: Will Campuzano vs. Justin Scoggins

Middleweight Bout: Bubba McDaniel vs. Sean Strickland

Featherweight Bout: Daniel Pineda vs. Robert Whiteford

This will be the first one I get for some time. It should be a solid and fun card. I can't see the main event being anything but a really good stand up war.

Great title fight between Hendricks/Lawler. Really close competitive fight with Johnny coming out strong and Robbie battling back, with Johnny taking the 5th rd in most people's eyes to secure the belt.

A bummer that Carlos Condit got hurt during his fight, having said that Tyron did what he needed to do and might be the next challenger for the belt.

Lombard is another person knocking on the door to a title shot after beating Jake Shields, would like to see a fight between him and Rory McDonald.

Prelims were really fun as well with back and forth scraps in the womens fight and Story/Gastelum.

Excellent main event. Hendricks really had to work for this win. While I can see why people felt that Lawler seemed like the true winner of the fight due to him doing more damage in the rounds that he won, the fights are scored on the 10-point must system. Each fighter won 2 each going into the 5th. Hendricks won that round, thus he won the fight.

A rematch down the line wouldn't be a bad idea at all. However, a new contender definitely needs to get a shot before then. Perhaps a #1 contender fight between Tyron Woodley and Rory McDonald, or maybe put Hector Lombard in that mix as well (who really isn't getting enough credit for beating Jake Shields so decisively).

The injury to Carlos Condit was unfortunate, but Woodley was winning just about every minute of that fight beforehand. Plus, Condit's injury was caused by Woodley's offense; the takedown and then the finish came after a leg kick. It was a legitimate win that was unfortunately downplayed by Joe Rogan's commentary, just like Lombard's win against Shields.

I get what the point of the Jury vs. Diego bout was. But I just wish that they would have put Diego in there with a fighter that would have made for a more exciting matchup. Not that this was a bad fight, but Jury had a clearly more skilled, tactical approach to this fight, as where Diego was looking for another exciting scrap like he had against Melendez in October. Good win for Jury though.