Does it rhyme with mudloping?
There's a common misconception that GSP has increible 'wrestling' as a whole. No doubt it's very good, but he is generally excellent in his double leg, reactive takedowns. But wrestling is greatly about clinch and upper body control, and on this turf GSP is not exceptional, though still very good. He has a lot of strength in his base; his legs are huge and very strong. He is thus very explosive. But his upper body frame is slender: he doesn't have much punching power, or strength in the clinch, at least not relative to others like Hendricks, Woodley, and so on. The immense majority of his takedowns are thus double legs. People confuse 'takedowns' with 'wrestling'.
In the fight, GSP was going for the double at the beginning of the fight, but Hendricks had trained to time that counter knee very well. After he got hit a few times with that, GSP became much more apprehensive with his attempts, and so was not successful at getting the takedown. He was outmuscled and outworked in the clinch, by the superior wrestler. His limited success was from the distance, with jabs and kicks. I thought he lost the fight.
Georges' hyper-conservatism and safe fighting can be a double-edged sword: he makes few mistakes, but if he faces adversity he becomes even more tentative to the point where he loses the necessary momentum to dominate. And with a gritty, brawling, strong forward moving dude like Hendricks it put him on the receiving end. That's what happened against Hendricks, I think. Had he gone more aggressively for the double leg, without fear for the knee, he might and I believe could have been more successful, though obviously would have opened himself to the risk of the counter. The knees made him fold and the result was he couldn't figure out the puzzle and win on his feet decisively.
Hendricks could very well emulate that technique today. I don't think it would work, because GSP is very smart, and he would not make the same mistakes. Hendricks has lost since not because he is an inferior version of himself, but because he has faced different fighters with different strengths and techniques. Robbie and Thompson are not easily flustered, they are superior strikers, and are also very strong in their own right. Nobody is as well rounded and overall as capable of winning against any kind of opponent as GSP, though.
