I favour Hendricks in this fight, but not by much. Pierce's wrestling seems to have transitioned better into MMA, but Hendricks is the superior boxer from my perspective. Pierce has a lot of power, but he keeps his left hand very low when throwing the straight right, which seems to be his money punch. Kenny Robertson came very close to countering that before he got knocked out, and if Hendricks can counter it, I think Pierce could be in a heap of trouble. Hendricks has big time power too.

I'm not sure if Pierce can take Hendricks down - at least not with any regularity - as nobody has ever really been able to do that. Brenneman only took Hendricks down once, and Story only took Hendricks down once for about five seconds (people often incorrectly remember that fight and think that Story totally out-wrestled Hendricks, which wasn't the case). That said, I don't see Hendricks taking Pierce down much at all, and if he does, I doubt he keeps him there for long. Pierce's ability to escape from the bottom is pretty awesome, even if he does have a tendency to give up his back briefly in the process.

Quote Originally Posted by Vaughany View Post
Hendricks fought at a lower weight in college (160lbs and 165 I believe) and even considered dropping to 155 after the Story loss.

This cant help but make me wonder why Hendricks wasn't able to do the same against Story when he is supposedly the better wrestler? Clearly a key factor was the size/strength difference
While this is true, Hendricks is still a huge welterweight. Pierce is very thick, but I don't think he's going to have a demonstrable size or strength advantage. As for the Story fight, I think Hendricks struggling against him had less to do with the size of Story, and more to do with the fact that Hendricks' offensive wrestling just hasn't transitioned that well into MMA. Even then, I still thought Hendricks did enough to win 29-28 (though I wouldn't object to a 29-29 draw either).