Kennedy: Hendricks tougher fight for me than Anderson Silva

UFC middleweight Tim Kennedy is one of the most entertaining interviewees in mixed martial arts. And Submission Radio is one of the most entertaining interviewers. The combination is win.

Kennedy played matchmaker, offer his thoughts on a fight with Johny Hendricks, now that ‘Big Rigg’ has been ordered up to middleweight.

That’d be a fun one,” he said. “You think he’d make 185 pounds?

When he was getting ready to cut to 170, he didn’t even make it past, like 187, right? Like, he was cutting and he was at 187, and they were like ‘whoa, you can’t cut anymore, bro. You’re getting sick’. So I think 185 might be a stretch for him. There are a lot of other guys in the division that I’d be more excited to fight, to include Anderson Silva, who will be coming off, you know, suspension for performance enhancing drugs. The winner of Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson. That’d be a fun fight. You know, against two legends, both of them love their TRT. Lyoto Machida, Nick Diaz. Those are some fun, fun fights. Johnny Hendricks would be, I think a harder fight than all four of those, but it would be a fight that I would be excited for, regardless.

I think he’s better. I mean, of all those guys that I just listed, I think Johny Hendricks is better than most of them. Especially stylistically for me, you know, two wrestlers with heavy hands. Stylistically it’s…again, especially compared to Vitor Belfort or Anderson Silva. Both of which, who I think would be very easy fights for me. Style-wise, Johny is a little bit more difficult.

Kennedy also reacted to Dan Henderson statement that a fight between the pair would not be fan friendly.

Yeah, I’m a bad match up for Dan,” said Kennedy, laughing. “Let’s just get down to it. It’s not ‘stylistically’. You know, he’s not going to take me down. His wrestling’s not good enough to stop my takedowns, and fundamentally I’m a better striker than he is. So he really has one shot, and that’s going to be his big right hand, ‘H-Bomb’. So that’s getting slower, as h’s weaker with his age, as his chin is. So it’s, you know, I don’t know. We’re kind of both like ‘Go America’ type guys. So that’s not cool. Two America-type guys fighting. And so I think the foundation for what he was saying was: ‘I don’t want to fight Tim because it’s a bad match up for me. I don’t know how I’m gonna beat him, besides maybe landing a lucky punch.’

Kennedy’s harshest words were reserved for Vitor Belfort, whose test results before UFC 152 were problematic to a degree.

Oh he’s cheater,” said Kennedy. “He’s always been a cheater. He’s been cheating since he was like 19 years old. In fact I think he failed his first steroid test when he was like 20 or something. That’s crazy. And now he’s old as hell, and he’s still cheating. So I don’t know why people are acting surprised. I think the biggest story of this is that the UFC, you know, potentially covered this up for him to go ahead and fight in the main event fight. That’s a tragedy. There’s no surprise that Vitor Belfort’s cheating. He’s always been cheating. There’s no surprise there. Like, the guy’s been cheating for forever. So all you guys that love Vitor Belfort, ‘cause he has all these fantastic, fun-to-watch knockouts. Guess what? He’s a cheater. Nothing’s ever changed about him. You’ve seen some things, maybe, evolve in this game slightly. The only thing that’s stayed true is he’s always cheated.

Last week Kennedy offered some of the harshest criticism of the Reebok deal heard to date. The fighter was asked if there was a negative feedback from the UFC over the comments.

What are you going to say to me?” he retorted. “Like, if I say ‘hey, this how much I made in my last fight in sponsorship money. Here’s how much I made in my last Strikeforce fight with sponsorship money. Here’s how much I made in a title fight in Strikeforce, and this is how much I’m gonna make now with the new Reebok deal.’ Like, how can you argue that? Because obviously I’m not an idiot. I’m a good business man. I own a bunch of businesses. And then they’re like ‘Oh Tim, you’re a liar’. I’d be like ‘Oh, well tough luck dude. Here’s my income tax statement, and every one of my forms of income is listed and this fantastic quick book spreadsheet, that I’ll provide to the public.’

“Like, you can’t call bulls— on me, because everything I say is true, and then you’re just going to have pie in your face. So I’m kind of like a tough one. Like yeah, maybe he [Dana White] can call me and say ‘hey, we don’t appreciate those comments, could you tone it down a little bit?’ But you also know that I’m always going to speak my mind. Like, how are you gonna tell a guy that’s always gonna say what he thinks to be true, to shut up? ‘Cause that’s just not how he rolls. I don’t know. It’s a tough thing when you know you’ve got me on your roster.

The Tim Kennedy Reebok Fight Kit is conspicuously absent from the Reebok online store. They’ve got Tim Boetsch, Tim Means, Tim Johnson, and Steve Kennedy, but no Tim Kennedy.

Ohhh,” he began. “I think they pulled it right as I started talking, and I was like, it’s super ugly and overpriced, and that I only get like 70 cents per every kit that’s sold, or something horrific.

Well, I’m not sure if I’ve ever sold a single one of my fighter kits, but I’ve definitely never gotten a check from them. And we are still looking at the merchandise agreement, trying to just figure out what we would actually get, if we got anything from the sale of a Tim Kennedy fighter kit. So there’s actually a very good chance, let’s say if a million people bought a Tim Kennedy fighter kit t-shirt, I might not get any money at all. If you can you imagine that.

Kennedy also said he would likely rather be fighting for Scott Coker.

Scott’s awesome,” he said. :I love fighting for Scott. Scott was fun, Scott made exciting fights, Scott made entertaining fights. It wasn’t quite Pride, but it was the best that you could do, without having a bunch of guys hopped up on every single steroid they put their hands on, you know, which is what Strikeforce was. It was an opportunity for people that like to entertain, to really put on and display their skillset. If I wasn’t contractually obligated to the UFC, would I go fight for Scott Coker? I think I definitely would. I love the guy, I love fighting for him, and I kind of miss those days.