Johny Hendricks News

Christopher Taylor - November 9, 2018

Bare Knuckle Boxing took center stage tonight as WBKFF 1: Rise Of The Titans went down in Casper, Wyoming live from the Casper Events Center. Tonight’s event featured a handful of former UFC staples including former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, Phil Baroni, Chris Leben, Josh Neer and Isaac Vallie-Flagg.

Tom Taylor - October 19, 2018

Earlier this year, former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks retired from MMA. As it turns out, however, this retirement was short-lived. Hendricks is now gearing up for a foray into the bloody world of bareknuckle boxing, as he’s set to battle former Bellator welterweight contender Brennan Ward in the main event of the debut show from World Bareknuckle Fighting Federation (WBKFF) on November 9. From the sounds of it, it’s also possible that Johny Hendricks returns to MMA in the future too. Speaking on MMAjunkie Radio this week, the former welterweight kingpin shared his feeling that the skills he develops in his bareknuckle boxing training might add a new layer to his MMA game.

Tom Taylor - October 2, 2018

Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, who retired from MMA this summer, is gearing up for bareknuckle fight with former Bellator welterweight contender Brennan Ward. The fight will go down on November 9, in the main event of the debut show from World Bareknuckle Fighting Federation (WBKFF). While this bareknuckle fight is something of an experiment for Johny Hendricks, he says it’s something he’s considering committing to for a while.

Tom Taylor - September 25, 2018

This summer, after a series of losses in the UFC middleweight division, former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks announced his retirement from MMA. Speaking on The MMA Hour on Monday, the former champion Hendricks explained that his retirement had a lot to do with the UFC’s association with the United States Anti-Doping Agency. 

Tom Taylor - July 3, 2018

Last week, former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks joined Michal Bisping, Rashad Evans, Ian McCall and Josh Koscheck in the pool of big-name fighters to recently announce their retirement from MMA.  Speaking on Monday’s edition of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show, Hendricks explained why he opted to hang up the gloves. From the sounds of it, the former champ, who will now serve as a wrestling coach at Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas, simply fell out of love with fighting.

Drake Riggs - June 27, 2018

The MMA world was hit with a big retirement from a legend and former UFC champion earlier this week. Now we’ve been hit with another. Unfortunately, the story of Johny Hendricks’ wild career may be more remembered for his rapid decline after losing his title via a controversial decision. However, what he did before that can’t be forgotten.

Tom Taylor - May 2, 2018

There was a time not all that long ago that Johny Hendricks was considered the best welterweight on the planet. Unfortunately, his career has taken a rather grim turn, and he’s now a tough 3-7 in his last 10 bouts. Not even a move to the middleweight division, where the weight cut is less taxing, could bring him renewed success. After his last loss, a knockout at the hands of surging middleweight contender Paulo Costa, Hendricks became a free agent. And though he could surely find a home as a member of the Bellator or PFL rosters, he’s hoping to return to the UFC welterweight division, where he once medalled. Apparently, this is something the UFC is also interested in.

Drake Riggs - March 6, 2018

Few things in the recent history of MMA world champions have been quite as shocking as Johny Hendricks’ fall from grace. The former NCAA Division 1 wrestler out of Oklahoma State went from being a UFC champion with a record of 16-2 in his career to losing six of his last eight fights and being forced up a weight class after multiple misses. On top of all this, Hendricks’ UFC contract has expired and he is currently a free agent. However, despite his uncertainty on whether or not he would be returning to the organization he was once a champion of, some signals are being given out that the UFC may still have interest reports Brett Okamoto:

Tom Taylor - November 6, 2017

There was a time, not all that long ago, when Johny Hendricks was considered the best welterweight on earth. Unfortunately, the former welterweight king has since experienced an abrupt and violent decline. In the face of a string of losses and a difficult cut to the welterweight division’s 170-pound limit, Hendricks opted to move north to the 185-pound middleweight division. And while a win over Hector Lombard in his middleweight debut initially made this move look like a potential career-saver, he has since been knocked senseless by hulking middleweights in Tim Boetsch and, as of last weekend, Paulo “The Eraser” Costa.

Chris Taylor - November 4, 2017

A middleweight scrap between Paulo Borrachinha and Johny Hendricks kicked off the pay-per-view portion of tonight’s UFC 217 card in New York. Round one begins and Borrachinha lands a hard low kick to start. He lands another hard kick this time to the body of Hendricks. Johny circles and avoids a head kick. He charges forward with strikes but can’t find the mark. He lands a pair of nice low kicks. Paulo paws with his jab. He lands a nice body kick on Hendricks. Paulo leaps in with a right hand that just misses. Hendricks shoots in but fails on an attempted takedown. Paulo lands a left and then misses with a head kick. Hendricks lands a low kick. Paulo is backing him up though. Borrachinha with a right hand. He goes to the body with a jab. Another big right hand from Paulo. The Brazilian lands a knee. Hendricks is trying to circles off the fence. He does and then lands a low kick. Hendricks shoots in for a double leg but can’t secure the takedown. Johny lands a shot that gets Paulo’s attention. He follows that up with a low kick. Paulo tells him to bring it on. Borrachinha with a nice body shot followed by a kick to the midsection. Hendricks lands a left hand and then another. Paulo responds with a spinning heel kick. Hendricks with a left. Paulo with a shot to the body. Round one comes to an end.

Justin Golightly - November 3, 2017

Cutting weight has become a huge problem in MMA, a problem that a lot of people have yet to be able to find a solution for. Luckily, there were no edge-of-your-seat suspenseful situations for the UFC 217 weigh-ins. The closest we got was Johny Hendrick’s pre-scale speech about why he’s probably going to miss weight. This references back to his long storied rivalry with making weight at both welterweight and even at middleweight. Don’t worry though, Big Rig. This is an article about celebration because the man made weight anyway. Johny HENDRICKS! Boom! 😂😂@JacksonWinkMMA #UFC217 #MMA pic.twitter.com/B8ll9orD2Y

Justin Golightly - October 11, 2017

Johny Hendricks hasn’t had the best luck lately. He’s only been able to win four of his last 10 fights. Although considering that three of them were Georges St-Pierre, Robbie Lawler and Stephen Thompson, it’s understandable. A bad run coupled with difficulty cutting weight led Hendricks to jump up to middleweight, where he’s one-and-one. Johny Hendricks thinks he may have found what he needed to get out of his slump with a move to one of the best camps in all of MMA with Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn. “It started about a year and a half ago it just turned hard to get partners to come in and train. I could find boxers, but MMA is a little bit different than boxing, the distance and where to move your head and where you’re safe and where you’re not because you can throw kicks. And after that last fight, that was sort of the last straw that I was like, you know what, I got to get people, I got to get more than just one look. And my coach was telling me to go try a couple of camps out, and we talked to Winkeljohn and he said, “sure, come on out, try it out,” and I did, and after the first day I knew that from here on out that’s where I’ll be training, let’s just say that. Now, I’m gonna still train here in Texas cause I can’t leave my family for that long, right? But I plan on doing majority of my camp out in New Mexico.”

Tom Taylor - October 2, 2017

It wasn’t all that long ago that Johny Hendricks stood out as the best welterweight alive. After coming up short in a hotly-debated split decision opposite Georges St-Pierre, he captured welterweight gold in a thrilling fight with Robbie Lawler, cementing himself as the true king of the welterweight division.

Tom Taylor - June 29, 2017

After multiple failed cuts to the welterweight division’s 170-pound limit, former champion Johny Hendricks was sent packing to the 185-pound middleweight division. In his first fight in this new division, he followed an easy weight cut with a competitive but impressive decision win over former Bellator champ Hector Lombard. Things seemed to be looking up. Unfortunately, Johny Hendricks’ second middleweight bout, a Sunday showdown with Tim Boetsch, was much less successful. First, he missed weight for the fight. Then, he was turned off by a second-round head-kick and a swarm of uppercuts.

bjpenndotcom - June 24, 2017

Saturday morning, the fighters of tomorrow’s ‘UFC Fight Night: Oklahoma City’ hit the scales ahead of their scheduled bouts. Unfortunately for former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, he once again missed weight for the event, coming in at 188 pound, two pounds over the middleweight limit for non-title fights. This of course marks the third time in Hendricks last 4 fights that he has missed weight. Hendricks previous two weigh-in misses both occurred at welterweight, with this one being his first time missing since moving up to middleweight for his last fight against Hector Lombard.

bjpenndotcom - April 28, 2017

Back in 2013, UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre stepped into the Octagon against Johny Hendricks for a highly anticipated showdown that served as his ninth title defense. The fight was an extremely close one, which saw the judges award St-Pierre with a split decision win, marking his ninth successful title defense. The decision was undoubtably a controversial one, and St-Pierre ultimately ended up vacating the belt and taking an indefinite hiatus from the UFC in the days following the fight.

bjpenndotcom - March 9, 2017

The last time former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre was in the Octagon, ‘Rush’ was defending his welterweight title for the 9th time as he faced streaking contender Johny Hendricks. St-Pierre ultimately won the fight via split decision, retaining the belt and moving one step closer to the record of 10 title defenses set by middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva. With that being said, many believed Hendricks won the fight. This of course led to talks of a potential rematch, however with St-Pierre’s hiatus from the Octagon, a rematch was never a realistic possibility. Now, with St-Pierre set to return to the Octagon in 2017 at middleweight, and Hendricks currently coming off a win at 185 pounds, many have wondered if fight fans could see St-Pierre vs. Hendricks II four years later.

bjpenndotcom - February 28, 2017

Back in 2013, Johny Hendricks stepped into the Octagon for a highly anticipated fight with UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre. The pair scrapped in the main event of UFC 167, where St-Pierre picked up a controversial split decision to retain the welterweight championship. Following the fight, St-Pierre vacated the title and stepped away from the Octagon. Now, with a Georges St-Pierre return on the horizon following news that the former champ had signed a new multi-fight contract, and Hendricks currently fighting at middleweight, the former champ spoke on The MMA Hour to discuss the return of Georges St-Pierre, saying: