Hendricks predicts MacDonald takes title from Lawler

Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks was a guest on this week’s episode of Submission Radio.

“Bigg Rigg” lost his title to Robby Lawler via Split Decision at UFC 181 on December 6, 2014, and was asked if when he stood in the Octagon he understood what the judges were thinking.

No I didn’t,” said Hendriks. “And you know I’ve looked at a lot of things. There’s things out there that say I outpunched him, I out-struck him, I took him down – even though I wasn’t able to do some things on the ground, but they still gotta count for something, you know what I mean? Two is, even though he was sort of pushing forward, a lot of his stuff didn’t hit. I was doing angles, you know? Whenever they read out that [I lost the fight] I was actually disappointed. You know what I mean? Because that’s the second time something like that happened.

“The first time you’re shocked, but you’re not really because you’re fighting somebody like GSP. And I thought I did enough to win, but I guess they didn’t see it. But to beat the champion you’ve gotta really beat the champion, and I don’t think he did. I still feel like I won that fight, but in the record books it is – I think it’s funny. You know I’m 1 and 4 in Vegas, did you know that? Yeah I’m 1 and 4 in Vegas, and what I’m 17-3. So it’s disheartening, you know what I mean? I love Vegas, I’ll go back, but it’s still… I gotta figure out what the judges want. I gotta look at it and I gotta sit there and say ‘ok you want this, you like that. That’s what I’m going to work for.'”

You go in there and you try to put on a show, you try to to do this, you try to do that, make fans happy, and then stuff like that happens. Then you’re like ‘okay, what do I gotta do to win that fight?’ Then you start going back and you re-look at it. GSP [in the] second round, I had him down on his back, he couldn’t get up. The crowd started booing a little bit and guess what happened? I let him up. Okay, well he couldn’t get up from the bottom if I would have kept pounding him, and kept throwing punches and doing stuff like that. That would have worn him out a lot more heading into the third, fourth and fifth round. So those are the things that you’re really, you know it starts wearing on you; because I want to keep the fans happy and I want to do those things, but I also want to win.

No. No I don’t regret [letting GSP up], because if you re-watch the fight, I did everything I wanted to do. You know what I mean? Like literally, that’s the fight that I could look back and say, it was a great weight cut it, was a great fight. I did everything, and I did it the best I could.

Division champion Robbie Lawler fights Rory MacDonald at UFC 189 on July 11, and Hendricks likes the challenger.

The first fight was close,” said Hendricks. “It was closer than I remember, because every time I looked up I hear the crowd yelling and I was like ‘oh man’. At first I was like ‘oh man, Robbie Lawler really took it to Rory MacDonald’, and then I re-watched it. I thought it was a lot closer than before. I still think Lawler won, but I think it was a lot closer than I even gave credit to him. Because you know, I’m in the back warming up – but this fight I think Rory MacDonald.

“He’s got great coaches, he’s going to figure out a way. They’re game-planners. They’re guys that are going to do this, this, and this, and they’re going to make sure that everything runs to a ‘T’, and so this one I’m actually sort of excited to see, because Robbie Lawler. you can never count him out of a fight, because no matter what you do he seems like he’s always in it. So this is a fight that’s going to be, can Robbie Lawler walk him down and land that punch? Or can Rory MacDonald keep him at bay, keep him at distance and get the win?

Hendricks may well fight the winner, and he is happy fighting a new champion.

This has torn me for a while now,” he said. “You know there’s a part of me that would like to get a win over Robbie Lawler, but then again it was sort of nice to train for somebody new. You know for the three months, it gets boring for when you fought him, and you fought him, and you train for him, and you train for him and then going back and training for him again. I will, but it’s like, you want that, to train for him again so that you can get your hand raised and it could be over with. Or you could sit there and say ‘hey, it’d be nice for 3 and a half months to train for somebody like Rory MacDonald’. Train for new stuff to always improve.

Hendricks was conflicted about the potential return of former division champon Georges St-Pierre.

There’s a part of me that sits there and says ‘Yes, I’d love to have him back, because I would like to fight him again,'” said Hendricks. “But then there’s also a part of me where you’re never going to be able to take away what he did. Does that make sense? He did a lot of stuff for the sport and a lot of stuff for the welterweight division. So there’s a part of me that says ‘hey, stay in retirement and let us decide to see who the next sort of GSP will be.’ That’s where my head’s at.”

Hendricks also discussed several sources of controversy including Ben Askren, Conor McGregor, and Mike Dolce.

At UFC 185 ONE FC welterweight champion Ben Askren goaded Hendricks with an image literally knocking on his door.

Yeah, he was probably knocking on his own door,” said Hendricks.

Are kidding me? Yeah here’s the thing, he’s going to do anything he can to get into the UFC. Why wouldn’t he? You know what I mean? But you also can’t call the owner or the manager a… [laughs] you know you can’t sit there and say stuff to them and act like it’s going to be okay when it comes time to get in there. And that’s where the thing is that he sees that I could be his ‘meal ticket’, and I’m not going to be that.

I don’t care what he says. I gotta worry about Robbie Lawler, I gotta worry about Rory MacDonald and a bunch of other guys that are coming for me or coming for that belt. So as of right now, he could say whatever he wants to, do whatever he wants to, but I don’t know if people are listening, in a sense. Because I’m not. Like I said, I’m focused on Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald. We’ll see what happens. That’s where my main focus is because I want my belt back.

Hendrics was asked if he believes it was disrespectful for Conor McGregor to snatch the belt away from Jose Aldo.

Yes I do,” said Hendricks. “Now if Aldo said ‘hey, you wanna hold my belt?’ and he took it that way, yes. But you know ripping it from somebody who’s earned it is… yes I think that’s where – you know, I like McGregor, but that’s where I had to say ‘hey that’s not [cool]’. Because I understand he’s doing it for publicity or whatever he was doing it for. But you know hey, get it, then you could do it. Until it’s actually wrapped around your waist, that’s just like where I’m like ‘hey you crossed the line.’

On how difficult it was for Hendricks to eat healthy and if he had to throw his old food habits out the window

Lawler dropped famed nutritionist Mike Dolce for his last camp, which many interpreted as rebuke of the Dolce Diet, but it was not. Hendricks described how it went.

My wife and me, we got some friends involved with it and what we’d do is every Sunday after church, everybody would come over and then we would prep for the week,” he said. “And not only that, but I also added a lot of weight lifting. You know, I think you all could tell from the last weight cut to this one. I feel like I’m stronger and I feel like I have more muscle.

The reason why [I dropped Dolce] is because we always called him ‘the miracle worker’ because he’d get me from 215 or 220 down to 170, and I think I relied too much on him. And this last weight cut or whenever I was using him, I was just like ‘you know what? I gotta do it by myself’. If I don’t do it by myself then I’m not going to make the changes.

I feel like if I see him I’m going to happy to see him. Like he’s still working with me if that makes sense, but I just knew that it was time for me to really separate myself and say hey, if people are going to be calling me fat or out of shape, or this or that, it’s time to take it into my own hands.

[The Dolce Diet] does [work], because even today I still use some of the Dolce diet. The only thing is that I just add seasoning to a lot of my stuff. And hey, he got from 215 to 170 for what, 2 and a half years? You know what I mean? So yeah I think he works, but then again you know everybody’s different, and the reason why I say this is because, for example if you go out and try and get a striking coach today, and whenever you’re doing something definitely like this, whenever your life is sort of on the line, if you go out there and you know you need to get into the Octagon with somebody, and you know that they’re going to try and beat your face in, are you just going to trust anybody? You know what I mean?

“It’s like a trust barrier that sometimes people have it and they say ‘hey it’s the best thing ever’. And there’s going to be guys that when stuff like this happens, they’re gonna be like ‘man I just didn’t feel it’ and that’s where I say, to each to their own. Maybe those guys just didn’t feel it, they weren’t… they didn’t have that connection. Does that make sense? And whenever you step into an octagon – you know it’s a little bit different if you’re just losing weight, but whenever you’re trying to actually get in there and be at your peak performance, it’s always a little tougher to get that.”

I’ve been eating healthy since my fight and I’m still waking up well under 200, and one thing I’ve learned is portion control. So for example if I eat pizza, instead of eating the whole thing, I eat three slices and then I put it up. Or if I go out to eat, I eat until I’m full, but not like over-full, and I think that’s sort of everybody’s problem is that whenever you’re paying for something, people are like ‘I wanna get it all down’.

As soon as I get on my diet, you know I’m waking up at 200 right now. There’s a chance I could probably be walking around at 192, and that’d be nice, you know an extra 8 pounds that I don’t have to lose.