5 All-time most controversial decisions in UFC title fights

#4 Georges St. Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks – UFC Welterweight title, UFC 167

Johny Hendricks failed to unseat Georges St. Pierre after a controversial judges' decision

By November 2013, Georges St. Pierre had been dominating the UFC’s Welterweight division for 7 years, and since winning the title for the second time in April 2008, he’d turned away 8 successive challengers, beating all of them in convincing fashion – even after serious knee surgery in 2012.

At UFC 167 then, many fans were counting challenger Johny Hendricks out, despite ‘Bigg Rigg’ being on a tremendous run of form, knocking out tough contenders like Jon Fitch and Martin Kampmann with his ridiculous punching power and using his wrestling skill to defeat Josh Koscheck and Carlos Condit.

But Hendricks had other ideas, and after narrowly escaping an early guillotine choke, it appeared that some hard uppercuts and elbows to the head – as well as a takedown – had sealed the first round for him. The second round went even better for the challenger; this time he had St. Pierre wobbled with some big combinations, hurting the champion like few had been able to do before. Going into the third round, it was clear that ‘GSP’ was in trouble.

The Canadian champion came back strongly to win the third round with his striking combinations – despite giving up a takedown late on – but a slip on exiting a clinch in the fourth saw him end up on his back, where Hendricks then worked him over with a series of hard punches and elbows, beating him bloody before the round came to an end.

‘Bigg Rigg’ looked ultra-confident coming into the fifth and final round – even singing to himself in his corner – and that turned out to be a big mistake, as GSP showed the heart of a lion to out-fight him in all areas and win the round. But essentially, it looked to be too little, too late.

Despite everyone assuming Hendricks had done the impossible though, only one judge scored the fight for him – the other calling it 48-47 for St. Pierre, giving him a split decision win. Quite how they’d come to that conclusion was a mystery given Hendricks surely took the first, second and fourth round.

The UFC did their best to attempt to book an immediate rematch, but St. Pierre – potentially seeing the writing on the wall – stepped away from the sport instead, vacating the title in the process. 7 years on, while GSP is widely recognized as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, this remains a controversial decision.