Johny Hendricks Once Again Promises To Retire With A Loss
After he missed weight before his last two fights at welterweight, former UFC champion Johny Hendricks has been forced to make the jump up to 185 pounds.
‘Bigg Rigg’ will make his middleweight debut against 38-year-old Cuban veteran Hector Lombard at February 19’s UFC Fight Night 105 from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Following three straight losses, Hendricks recently joined Submission Radio (quotes via MMA Mania) to discuss his upcoming bout with Lombard, vowing to walk away from the sport once and for all if he racks up a fourth consecutive UFC loss:
“Yes, I said if I lost I would (retire). But again, what I’m saying is, if I go out there and get beat up like I did the last two fights, you know, where I still can’t compete with those guys – which I clearly showed I can’t. Now I’ll be better, I think at 185. But like I said, if I go out there and I can’t compete, well I guess I can’t make 170, right? And I’m not going to try to ever again. It’s just too hard on my body. And if I fight good at 185, well then I’m gonna stay there.
“But if I don’t do good, then guess what, it’s time. I had my fun, I had my time. It’s not worth going out there and training for 12 weeks and then being done, or going out there and just losing. And that’s really what it’s about. And here’s one thing that really leads me to believe that that fight was mine – did you hear the boos after that? The whole crowd thought I won that fight. So I don’t want to leave whenever the fans think I’ve won. And that’s really where my head’s at, is that hey, they believe I won that fight, so I’m gonna do one more.”
Hendricks hasn’t won a fight since a unanimous decision win over Matt Brown, who has seen a sharp drop-off in performance himself, at UFC 185 in early 2015.
Since then the former welterweight champion has suffered three back-to-back losses to Stephen Thompson, Kelvin Gastelum, and Neil Magny. With ‘Bigg Rigg’ now apparently putting his career on the line against Lombard, it makes their clash inside the Octagon all the more interesting.
So Hendricks has once again vowed to retire if he loses his next fight – something MMA fans probably wouldn’t argue with if he does. Will UFC Fight Night 105 mark the end of “Bigg Rigg?”
You can listen to Hendricks’full interview with Submission Radio here:
