Dolce: Hendricks weight issue ‘more important than sport’

Johny Hendricks began camp for his fight at UFC 192 at a reported 205-210. On Tuesday before the fight when he arrived at the hotel, he was a reported 20-25 pounds over the 171 limit for a non-title welterweight fight (or 191-196). By Thursday afternoon Hendricks said he was 183. On Thursday night he was hospitalized.

Hendricks used to work with nutrition guru Mike Dolce. At UFC 181 Hendricks came into camp at 218, but lost the UFC welterweight title to Robbie Lawler.

Then he decided prior to UFC 185 to go out on his own.

“Behind the scenes, my wife does everything,” said Hendricks at the time. “On Sundays we do the meal prepping. We’re not with Dolce on this one. It’s just a mutual thing.”

“I wanted to do it on my own. I learned a lot of stuff from Dolce and I’m using a lot of his stuff that I’ve learned, the way I prep my food and all that kind of stuff. But everybody’s talking about my weight and it’s time for me to man up and do it on my own, see what I can do. I love Mike Dolce, I have no bad feelings.”

Hendricks made weight for UFC 185, and beat Matt Brown, but at UFC 193 he was out of the fight, and the division. Dolce recently appeared on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and discussed the fiasco.

“It was certainly a comedy of errors and most of it falls on Johny’s shoulders for coming into camp much too heavy as he once did,” said Dolce, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “That was kind of his M.O., feeling that he could get the weight off. But in your early 30s, you just can’t do that. With his body-fat percentage, you’re not able to get that weight off in a healthy manner. You really start to dehydrate the organs in the process. And I think that’s where his body started to shut down.”

“I was gutted for Johny. I was very sad for him. Number one, I was concerned about his health, which I’ve been concerned about a while knowing him and seeing the way he really mistreats his body in the offseason. He’s not a 19, 20-year-old kid wrestling at Oklahoma. He’s a 30-something-year-old man with three babies and one on the way. He cannot do the things that he once did to his body and get away with them. I think that finally caught up with him before this fight.”

However, Dolce does not think the solution is a forced move to middleweight.

“I wouldn’t say that first, simply because Johny is 5’8, 5’9 on his best day,” said Dolce said. “At 185, he’s fighting Rockhold and Weidman. That’s much more dangerous, getting hit in the head by Chris Weidman, I think, than Johny taking six months and truly dedicating himself to living a healthy lifestyle.”

“This is more important than sport. It’s more important than Johny Hendricks’ career. Johny has a much longer life to live after this sport and he needs to do the things that are in his best interest and the best interest of his health. And that’s getting his lifestyle in order. He needs to start cleaning up his diet, his lifestyle and living a much healthier existence. Then, he can think about fighting at 170 again.”