diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/versioning/versioning.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/versioning/versioning.go
index aedec75ee0e..004e5c33718 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/versioning/versioning.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/serializer/versioning/versioning.go
@@ -171,8 +171,11 @@ func (c *codec) Encode(obj runtime.Object, w io.Writer) error {
 	case *runtime.Unknown:
 		return c.encoder.Encode(obj, w)
 	case runtime.Unstructured:
-		// avoid conversion roundtrip if GVK is the right one already
+		// avoid conversion roundtrip if GVK is the right one already or is empty (yes, this is a hack, but the old behaviour we rely on in kubectl)
 		objGVK := obj.GetObjectKind().GroupVersionKind()
+		if len(objGVK.Version) == 0 {
+			return c.encoder.Encode(obj, w)
+		}
 		targetGVK, ok := c.encodeVersion.KindForGroupVersionKinds([]schema.GroupVersionKind{objGVK})
 		if !ok {
 			return runtime.NewNotRegisteredErrForTarget(reflect.TypeOf(obj).Elem(), c.encodeVersion)