Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks announced his retirement from MMA last week ended his 12-year professional career with a record of 18-8, which includes a 13-8 in the UFC.
“Bigg Rigg‘ was on a two-fight losing streak when he walks away from combat sports. Hendricks asserted himself, top welterweight contender, back in 2014 and he went on to claim the UFC’s 170-pound championship by defeating Robbie Lawler in a razor-thin unanimous decision at UFC 171.
After that pinnacle, Hendricks went to a 2-6 record the remainder of his career. He dropped the belt in an immediate rematch against Robbie Lawler and was bothered by weight issues, including an incident back in 2015 where he was hospitalized during a botched weight cut. He moved up to middleweight in 2017 and recorded a 1-2.
Back then picking up few victories put you in title situation, nowadays to reach to a title shot, you have to do trash talk in addition to wins. Hendricks refuse to take part in that. (Via MMAMania)
“Sometimes it’s not even about how good a fighter you are, it’s about how good you learn to run your mouth. I’m just a southern kid that likes to do something, That’s really the gist of it,” Hendricks said on “The Ariel Helwani MMA Show.”
“Then you start throwing in this guy who is doing this, that guy who is doing this, and you know what, for me, it’s not the same sport I wanted to be involved with five or six years ago. It’s changing. I knew it would one day but I would’ve hoped it would be longer than that. Now that it has evolved into what it is, there are some people that are very good at what they do, run their mouth, and I can’t take nothing away from them because that’s the easiest part. So I ask myself, if I wanted to get back to where I was before, could I have done it without running my mouth?”
Hendricks says he’s glad that he’s over with MMA, no more weight management issues something that irked his past three years of career and decided not to pursue anywhere else as well.
“Realistically, I’m over it. I’m over the sport. I did my part and I can say I’m out of the MMA world and I don’t have to worry about something else happening,” Hendricks said.
“I’ve been thinking about it, should I give it another shot, should I not? And with that big question being taken away now I felt a lot of relief and I’m feeling really good about my decision. I still get to wake up, I train once a day, I’m still training wrestling, I’m still working out with guys. The only difference is, I don’t have somebody sitting here saying, ‘Oh, you’re walking around at 208 right now, you’re fat, you need to lose weight.’”
Hendricks also talks about issues with Judging in MMA. ‘Bigg Rigg’ claims to have more controversial losses on his resume as compared to good wins due to the lack of expertise those who score the fight.
“You’re looking at these judges, what do they want?” Hendricks explained. “Now that I am retired, I can say whatever I want, and that’s the beauty of it. What are these refs looking for? Why is it not regulated? In Nevada, why do we have boxing judges doing MMA? They don’t understand jiu-jitsu and why are they in the same arena? We have technology nowadays,” he added
”If I’m sitting here and I’m fighting somebody, and I hit him hard and the crowd goes ‘oh’ but it really wasn’t that hard of a hit, the judges are going to count that as something better,” he added. “I don’t know how many fights I have been to where I’ve sat behind the judge. They are back here texting and not even looking at the fight. Now that I am retired I don’t have to worry about a judge judging my fight the wrong way because he’s pissed off that I called him out.”
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