Issue 110

January 2014

Johny Hendricks blames simple human error for him remaining the number-one contender for the UFC welterweight title and not the champion. Next time, he says, Georges St-Pierre won’t be so lucky.

It has been just a handful of mid-November days since Johny Hendricks lost to Georges St-Pierre when he speaks to Fighters Only. On every one of them, Hendricks has prayed.

“God has a plan,” he tells FO from his house just outside Dallas, Texas. “Maybe something like this needed to happen, I don’t know why, but maybe I needed to learn something. Maybe he wanted to see how I handled myself in this kind of situation. Am I ready to have the belt? Because if I can’t handle myself on something like this, am I worthy of the belt?”

Ask many observers of the 30-year-old’s challenge for Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight title at UFC 167 and they’ll tell you they believe Hendricks is already worthy. They’ll describe how he was robbed by the judges in one of the most contentious split decisions in UFC history. Where all of the officials awarded him two rounds of the five, but only one gave him the necessary three.

Hendricks believes he earned the title too.

The result shocked many who had determined the 15-2 finisher beat the 170lb division’s 67-month champion in striking and grappling for the majority of the fight. It has again stoked debate about the current 10-point-must judging system, those who apply it and how they’re asked to do so.

But, far from rallying against them, and staying true to his Christian beliefs, Hendricks is forgiving of the judges who, as he sees it, effectively took away the UFC belt that he won over 25 minutes in Las Vegas. 

“There’s so much going on in a fight and it’s a title fight,” reasons ‘Bigg Rigg’ in his thick southern accent. “There’s a lot of pressure on those guys, don’t take nothing away from them. They’re under a lot of pressure. I don’t know what they were thinking so it’s hard for me to comment on anything… My job is to fight; it’s everybody else’s to figure everything else out.”

Being compassionate when so many wouldn’t be speaks volumes of the Team Takedown man’s character. He adds that the judges are human, just like anyone, and rationalizes that perhaps they saw something he didn’t. “I’m trying to put myself in their situation,” he explains. 

And the promise of an immediate rematch from UFC president Dana White makes his injustice “a little bit easier to swallow,” adds the grappler. 

“Move forward, get stronger, get faster, get where I can finish this fight,” he adds of his current mind-set. “I know I thought I possessed the ability to finish him that time, now I believe I can do it.”

Moving forward

Moving forward is a recurring mantra from the man just as well known for his pitch-black 300-esque facial accessory as his sleep-inducing leaping left hook, the latter having starched UFC names Martin Kampmann and Jon Fitch in 58 seconds total en route to his main event title tussle. But to properly move forward, Hendricks will have to reassess what happened at the MGM Grand on November 16th.

Still only a few days removed from the title fight, he hasn’t watched the action back yet. Instead he pulls from memory when asked how he scored the fight. He believes he took rounds one, two and four – convincingly.

“I thought I won those easy,” starts Hendricks, a hint of frustration in his voice, “because, GSP, the only thing he did was take me down in the first five seconds. I was up in what, 30 seconds? And after that I started taking control of the fight. Third round, a little hiccup, but fourth round I came out strong and the fifth round I was playing it safe.” 

Of course, that caution, which the former Oklahoma State wrestler accredits to not wanting St-Pierre to get a last-gasp knockout or submission, could have cost him the decision. 

Round one is what the judges disagreed on, but a dominant fifth would have given all scorers little choice but to hand him at least three stanzas regardless of the first. But that’s hindsight.

Hendricks had a chance to take the decision out of the judges’ hands in the second. While looking for a home for his power shots inside the first minute, Johny wobbled Georges with a short left uppercut. He hunted for the finish but it never came.

At the post-fight press conference Hendricks said the strike that rocked St-Pierre, and others, were only thrown with 70% power – on account of concerns about his conditioning in his first five-round contest. But, there was another reason that he didn’t divulge at the time.

He explains to FO: “When they wrapped my hands, and this is on me not on the UFC, it was thinner than I wanted. Instead of me saying, ‘Hey, it’s too thin,’ I said nothing.

“Well, after the first round, maybe you saw the tweet that I put out there, how my knuckles were bruised. My whole hand was bruised. And that was why, it was because the padding was too thin. So I was hitting straight knuckles through the small gloves.

“After a while they started hurting so I knew that I could break my hand. So I was like, ‘This is a possibility,’ so that’s why I started taking punches downwards, because I wanted to hit hard enough where I hurt him, but not hard enough to break my hand if he ducks down into it and I hit him on the top of the head.” 

A broken hand would have meant he’d have to throw with significantly less than 70% through the rest of the battle. Hendricks declined to reveal who wrapped his hands – because it’s not their fault he didn’t make his preferences known. “I usually say, ‘I need as thick as you can make it,’” he adds. “This fight I didn’t do that and that’s my fault. I take 100% blame on that.”

 ‘And the new..?’

One of the more memorable, and representative, images of the fight is from the final bell. Where a fresh and ecstatic Hendricks, believing he has won the clash, is walking away from a scuffed-up St-Pierre, who appears concerned as he’s lifting himself off the canvas. In his post-fight interview, the two-time champion would reveal he had no memory of certain portions of the fight. 

The French-Canadian’s dominance over his previous opponents, and the fact that Bigg Rigg never appeared to be in significant danger, considered, did he expect ‘Rush’ to give him a tougher fight?

“I did,” he confesses. “There’s so many things that people were saying I was going to lose at. There were so many situations. And all of a sudden I’m winning them.”

Hendricks was unreservedly gleeful following the scrap’s conclusion: with he and his corner celebrating in the belief the title would be going home with them to Texas.

As he lined up with GSP and referee Mario Yamasaki to hear the official judges’ decision, he says he had “no clue” his name might not be the one declared the victor. The scores came in: 48-47 Hendricks, 48-47 Pierre. Hendricks raised his left arm and looked over his shoulder at announcer Bruce Buffer, waiting for final reassurance he was about to be the 170lb strap’s new owner.

“And 48-47, for the winner,” called Buffer, “and still…” Hendricks dropped to his knees, placed his fists on the floor and stared at the canvas. Defeated.

“My heart sank,” he recalls. “My heart dropped. At that moment I prayed, you know what I mean? At that moment I was like, ‘Good Lord, what happened?’ I’m thinking, ‘What did I do wrong?’

“And then I just said to myself, ‘Hey, man, you won the fight.’ It did not feel like I lost the fight. I was just like, ‘You know what, say congratulations to him and say, hey, I did win the fight, and move forward.’” 

He continues: “It feels like, man, you’ve put your heart and soul into something and then somebody else has the ability to take it from you. And at that moment it’s sort of what it felt like. I did everything right; I did this, I did that. They stole it from me.”

Given the high emotions of the moment, and that some have called this the worst decision in UFC history, it’s a wonder Hendricks wasn’t venomous in his distaste for the judges’ call during his in-cage interview with Joe Rogan. Instead, he settled for lauding Georges as “a great competitor,” saying the belt is his and this “won’t happen again.”

Backstage, Hendricks confirms there was frustration, but also clarity. “I looked at my coaches and I said, ‘Hey, here’s the difference. If I would have went out there and got beat and I could have done something different, OK, cool. I could have fought differently, man, that’s all on me,’ and, God, I’d be furious, but we went back there and we were like, ‘We won that fight. It doesn’t feel like a loss.’ 

“And my coaches said that to me too; they were like, ‘I have so much more respect for you the way you handled that after the fight, and the way you carry yourself right now, than I did before the fight.’

“And I’m like, ‘Guys, it does suck, but this is going to be a defining moment. How do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered this way. We know we won, we know we did this, but let’s move forward, let’s be humble, let’s just be respectful and go from there.’” 

Judging deja-vu

On the UFC Primetime series that promoted his St-Pierre bout, the challenger told viewers of a significant match in his high school wrestling career that changed his competitive makeup. As a youngster he lost the state finals after being penalized for stalling. It was seen as a bad call. He remembered that he’d vowed to never let it happen again and recognized how one person can “steal your whole life away.” 

This must feel like déjà vu. He chuckles: “A little bit, a little bit. It’s a different scenario and I’m going to learn from this. I really am. That’s something that I’m going to do, just move forward, that’s all I can do.

“What I learned from that is I got so mad at the ref for doing that, that I sort of blacked out and when I blacked out I threw the guy in a headlock and I let my emotions take over. Does that make sense? And that’s what I told myself I’d never let happen again. And that’s sort of the way I’ve handled myself.”

As he repeats numerous times throughout the interview, he will ensure he learns from this most recent episode. Because while there’s no doubt that after less than a week from the most devastating loss of his career he really is beginning to make peace with the fight’s outcome, you

get the impression the number-one contender still feels flashes of the frustration from that evening. But instead of dwelling, he’s channeling that energy into enthusiasm for righting the wrong. Because, right now, that’s all he’s able to do. 

“One, I know I can go through the five-round fight,” asserts Hendricks when asked if he’s going to feel different in the rematch. “I proved that. And so no longer is the cardio of mine a question. Because it’s easy to sit here and say I have the cardio, but it’s a different thing to prove it, because that was my first five-round fight.

“Secondly, the strength that I had over GSP, you know what I mean?” he asks with a laugh recalling the ease with which he manhandled St-Pierre in the clinch. “I feel like I was a lot stronger than him, and I think I proved that. Wrestling, everybody’s talking about how good his wrestling is; I stuffed that. I outwrestled him.

“There are so many things I not only did that I knew or I felt like I was better at, I proved it too. And so that’s going to transfer into this next fight.”

When FO spoke to the challenger, a May battle was anyone’s best guess for a potential GSP rematch – which was made uncertain by St-Pierre’s fight-night declaration (since seemingly retracted) that he would be stepping away from the sport. 

Hendricks says he doesn’t care whether he scraps with St-Pierre next or never – the only thing he wants is the belt. Still, though, a Georges St-Pierre fight has its advantages. Confidence is one. Valuable field research is another.

The burning compulsion to make sure that the same outcome doesn’t happen again is something else altogether.

Several times in conversation with FO he’s declared he won’t lose out on becoming the UFC welterweight champion a second time. And each declaration sounds more as though Hendricks feels he’s prophesizing, and not just speculating. He is convinced. What tells him, guarantees to him, that the rematch will not slip through his fingers as well? 

“The way I’m going to train,” Hendricks states flatly. “My whole attitude. Everything that I can control, I’ll do differently. Meaning that I’m going to wrap my hands where I’ll have the pad where I can throw as hard as I want.

“And I’m going to correct those things, so whenever I do hit him, with full power, it’s not going to be something that,” Hendricks pauses as he collects his thoughts. “He forgot on 70% power. Wait until I touch him at 100%.” 

Under the spotlight

To promote the Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks title fight in November, the UFC released promo trailers in the run-up. You probably saw them: the ones that played on the tag-line that Hendricks had “the power to shock the world” with light bulbs exploding as he winged his trademark fight finisher, his big left hook, into a heavy bag.

They looked great, but, for the former Oklahoma State Cowboy, the process of filming literally left its mark on his preparations for St-Pierre. It emerged in October that the September shoot in Los Angeles had somehow managed to cause second-degree burns on the challenger’s back.

Hendricks details to FO: “They were making me wrap and unwrap my hands and they put me under a lamp and that is what burned me.

“At 10 minutes into it I was like, ‘Guys, I’m getting hot.’ They were like, ‘Only a couple more.’ Well, 30 minutes into it I’m like, ‘Guys, I’m starting to sweat.’ And then 45 minutes later, it was an hour total I was under there, I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got to stop. My back’s on fire.’ It was a human error.”

In the end it was healed with some medical attention. How much time did he take off exactly? “I didn’t take off any time,” replies Hendricks, sounding somewhat surprised at the suggestion the injury may have meant a few days out of the most important training camp of his career. “The first day, I went to wrestling, my skin peeled off with my shirt. The second day, the skin peeled off. The third day, it started to heal.”

Drug-free running

UFC 167’s main event wouldn’t have been a Georges St-Pierre title fight if the French Canadian’s name and talk of a drugs test weren’t circling. 

Prior to Hendricks’ contest with ‘Rush,’ both camps began discussions about the fighters undergoing drug screenings on top of the standard commission-ordered exams. However, they couldn’t agree whether to use the International Olympic Committee-endorsed World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), or the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA).  

St-Pierre’s camp decided on VADA and submitted to testing, while the Hendricks team said they weren’t notified of the final choice and were left in the cold. St-Pierre ultimately passed his VADA testing. 

It’s not uncommon for fighters to speak of certain opponents ‘feeling’ as though they were using performance enhancers. With the fight now over, and Hendricks the beneficiary of first-hand insight into the champion’s physical strength, did it feel as though he was ‘using’?

“You know, I don’t know,” says ‘Bigg Rigg.’ “I’ve wrestled guys who were on something and they felt weak. And I’ve wrestled guys that I knew they weren’t on anything but they felt absolutely strong. It’s just base by base.  

“This guy feels this way, that guys feels that way. And it’s just one of those things that you go, ‘Man.’

“He was probably strong. I knew that I was planning on using 100% of my strength; he probably was too until he felt mine, and then he knew he had to sort of take a step back.”  

Sing when you're winning

Prior to the fifth round of his challenge for Georges St-Pierre’s UFC welterweight title, Johny Hendricks could be seen pacing back and forth in his corner, bobbing his head and mouthing lyrics. UFC color commentator Joe Rogan wondered out loud whether the Texas fighter was singing to himself. It certainly looked like it – so was he?

“I think I was,” laughs Johny. “I really do enjoy fighting, and being out there. I knew I had the fight won and I knew I was enjoying the moment. Why not sing to yourself?”

Does he recall what the ditty was? “I don’t remember. It was probably something they played while I was in the back. Or it might have been the song I normally come out to, 50 Dollars and a Flask of Crown (by Bleu Edmondson). Something was in my head and I was sort of just going with the flow.” 

Mystery (mostly) solved.