Johny Hendricks Would Rather Work Hard Than Take Handouts

(So proud, the UFC welterweight champion won’t even accept free light bulbs for his training sessions)

UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks earned his shot at the champion of the time, Georges St-Pierre, through sheer hard work and determination. Starchings of Jon Fitch and Martin Kampmann, and decision wins over Carlos Condit and Josh Koscheck made ‘Bigg Rigg’s’ 10-1 UFC record all the more impressive.

Then came the decision loss at UFC 167, after a hard fought five round battle that many fans thought should have gone Hendricks’ way. GSP vacated the belt soon after, and ‘Bigg Rigg’ finally captured UFC gold with a decision win over Robbie Lawler at UFC 171. With the title comes an inevitable stream of perks, although Hendricks isn’t keen on hand outs. Check out what he said to Yahoo! Sports about his experience since winning the belt in March:

“It’s strange and I don’t understand it, but I’ve found that since becoming champion, people want to give me things for free,” Hendricks said. “I appreciate it, of course, but I don’t take it. I had to earn my way to become the champion and I’m not going to be any different than anyone else.”

“I worked hard and set goals and I was lucky enough to reach one of them [when I won the title], but I’ll tell you, I’m not going to let that change who I am. If I need something, I can buy it. I don’t need no one to give it to me. I like feeling like I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

There aren’t many other appeals for title fights that come to mind that are more hard fought than Hendricks’, and it was all summed up in a five round barn burner with ‘Ruthless’ in Dallas, Texas. The gruelling contest was a close battle in the eyes of many pundits, and Hendricks casts his mind back to that fight against Lawler:

“In those first two rounds, he knew I could take him down and that kept him at bay,” said Hendricks, who beat Lawler by unanimous decision. “But by the third round, he realized I couldn’t take him down. He didn’t know why, but he knew I wasn’t going for takedowns any more. I tried to threaten him with takedowns, just to keep the possibility in his head, but threatening a move and actually putting them down hard on their butts are two different things. “

“Since he knew I couldn’t take him off his feet, it allowed him to stay flatter on his feet and set down on his punches a little bit more. When he didn’t have to worry about me taking him down, it allowed him to load up more. Whether it’s Robbie or it’s Matt Brown or it’s Rory [MacDonald] down the road, I know what this [title reign] is going to be like: It’s going to be one elite son of a gun after another. It’s coming, and I know it.”

The welterweight division is as solid as it’s ever been, even with Tyron Woodley out of the runnings for the moment. Can Hendricks put together as impressive a run as Georges St-Pierre did, or will the contenders at 170 pounds prove to be too much for the heavy-hitting wrestler?

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