Two years and three weeks ago, Johny Hendricks was the UFC welterweight champion. Now he’s 33, and won just one of his last four fights. At UFC 207 on December 30, he fights Neil Magny, who won three of his last four.
During a recent appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Bigg Rigg said he has his motivation back.
Right after I left Team Takedown I was sort of comfortable with where I was at,” he said, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield for Sherdog. “I was also still wanting to be a family guy. I wanted to spend more time with my kids, with my wife. Being 33 years old and having three kids at the time and a fourth one on the way, I sort of wanted to be a father. Being an athlete and a father are very hard to do.
“My wife said after my last fight [vs . Kelvin Gastelum], ‘You’re not fighting anymore if you fight like that.’ So we sat down, we talked about it and she was like, ‘I know you still want to fight, so become the athlete that you were and we’ll move forward from that.’ That’s really the biggest thing I could have is my wife back me the way that she did.
I’m fighting one fight at a time finally. Now I can really sit there when somebody goes, ‘Johny what’s next for you?’ S***, I don’t know. I really don’t know. That takes a lot of pressure off me. Now it’s up to my wife. We’re training hard, she’s letting me do what I need to do. Urijah Faber just had his last one; he looked good. If you know it might be your end, you’re gonna train that much harder because you don’t want to go out on a loss. Right now I’m in a great place mentally, physically and all I can think about is Dec. 30 can’t come fast enough.
It’s always my fault if I miss weight. Whenever you miss weight, you’ve got to let it go. You’ve got to try to still compete. More than anything I just wasn’t firing. I watch that fight [vs . Gastelum] even still today and I’m looking at it going, ‘Man why can’t I fire?’ Things are open and I’m not doing them. What was the deal? And the deal was that I was not mentally ready. I have to be that.
You go through a 12-week camp, you train your butt off and you’re going, ‘Hey this could get me back the title, right?’ And then all of a sudden you don’t make weight and you’re going, ‘What now?’ That’s a big mental thing…. The day before the weigh-ins, your body just stops sweating and doing everything that it did. Yeah, it does play with you.
As of right now I’m not thinking of anything. All I’m thinking about is Neil Magny. I’m finally on that aspect. The belt is always there in the back of my mind, don’t get me wrong. I’m finally doing what got me to the belt in the first place. Saying,’ I don’t care who’s next. All I care about is this person right here.’
If I go out there and I perform like I need to, the belt will come. If I continue to fight. That’s the kind of attitude that I need to have to get back to where I want to be.
