Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks is calling it a career, months after what will now serve as his final fight at UFC 217.
Another former UFC champion has announced the end of his professional MMA career. Just days after ‘Suga’ Rashad Evans walked away from the sport, ex-welterweight champ Johny Hendricks is doing the same. Hendricks announced the news on MMA Junkie Radio on Wednesday. The decision to hang up the gloves puts an end to a career that started promising, but eventually ended in frustration and controversy, as Hendricks suffered a steep drop-off in the latter years of his UFC run, and struggled with his weight time and again.
“I’m done. I’m retiring. I’m getting out of the MMA world,” Hendricks told MMAjunkie Radio (via MMAJunkie.com). “I’ve been thinking about this long and hard for a while. I’m going to get back to my roots. I’m going to start coaching at All Saints (Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas). I coached a little bit of high school last year, but I’m going to make the move over to All Saints and start doing those things.”
Just 3-7 in his final ten bouts as a professional, Hendricks late-career struggles were well-documented. He came in heavy in three of his final five UFC bouts (and had another cancelled due to an intestinal blockage), which included blowing weight for a middleweight fight against Tim Boestsch last June. He would next fall to Paulo Costa at UFC 217 in New York last November — a fight that will now serve as the final chapter of his fighting career.
It wasn’t always that way. “Big Rigg” flourished from 2009 to 2013, losing just once in eleven fights. His own version of the H-Bomb (as Dan Henderson’s knockout punch is known), a crushing left, became a much feared weapon, and made him more than a one-dimensional wrestler. A six fight winning streak including victories over Jon Fitch, Martin Kampmann, and Carlos Condit earned him a shot at welterweight legend and undisputed champion Georges St. Pierre in 2013.
Yet Hendricks would come up short on the scorecards in a razor thin split decision that many saw going the other way. GSP would walk away from the sport after the victory, however, which gave Hendricks a second shot at gold. In his very next fight, he’d claim the vacant 170lb title in a bout against Robbie Lawler at UFC 171 — only to lose it in an instant rematch months later.
Somewhat ironically, Hendricks’ most remembered moment would go down not as the title victory, but as being the man who pushed GSP the furthest, even if he did come up just short.
After losing his belt, however, Hendricks was simply never the same. He would win just twice more, against Matt Brown and Hector Lombard, the latter coming at middleweight. Hendricks would blame the cancellation of his 2015 bout versus Tyron Woodley on eating too much deer meat. Bad weight cuts became the norm, with Hendricks infamously challenging reporters to cut weight. Valid concerns about his health and future in the sport were popping up as early as 2016.
For a time, however, Hendricks was one of the most feared fighters at 170lbs, in an era where it was one of the UFC’s deepest divisions. That, in and of itself, it quite the accomplishment.
