Hendricks: ‘Huge’ change in diet

Johny Hendricks believes that his weight cut was a huge part of why is he longer the UFC welterweight champion, but now believes that issue is behind him and is focused on regaining the title:

“This time, I’m right around 12 percent. I really made a huge change in my diet. That’s really what I’m focusing on now, is the weight cut. People don’t get it but a weight cut is so huge in terms of what can happen to your body, how it reacts, and how it comes back. If you drop weight well, you can bounce back when the fight happens the next day. So I’ve been making sure my weight cut is good, so that my body is good, so that I can perform well.

“I’m not even thinking that this one camp is going to change much. I’m not looking just at this fight to see where I am. I’m looking at where I can be a year from now, in my next fight after this. If I can keep this process up, I believe it can help me.”

Immediately after his loss to Lawler late last year, Hendricks confessed that the process of dropping weight was so brutal that he felt he’d need to consider retirement if he couldn’t do it better in the future. After such a rough time, then a dispiriting loss, and a rush into another challenging training camp and weight cut, fans of the “Bigg Rigg” will be happy to hear that the former champion is still truly enjoying the process, and looking forward to another scrap.

“Yeah, I am,” he promises.

“I love fighting whenever I get in there. After that last fight, I was sitting there going, ‘Man, that sucks. OK, I lost. How do we get back?’ The answer is to get a fight. You’ve got to get back on that horse. I want to get back. To be able to fight at home, again, I’m super excited for that as well. Hopefully I put on a great show for the fans. I want them to see everything that I’ve done. Also, I’m excited to fight a new opponent for the first time in about a year. 

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