Johny Hendricks admits a move to the middleweight division was long overdue.
Hendricks is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight title holder. After losing the belt to Robbie Lawler, “Bigg Rigg” went 1-3 in the 170-pound division and struggled to make weight.
He finally moved up to middleweight and earned a unanimous decision win over Hector Lombard back in Feb. 2017. He’ll look to make it two in a row against Tim Boetsch this Sunday night (June 25) at UFC Fight Night 112.
Speaking with UFC.com, Hendricks said a move to middleweight would’ve been even better had it been done sooner:
“I wish I’d have listened to myself a long time ago because I would have been at ’85 two years ago. As soon as I missed weight with Tyron, I wanted to go to ’85.”
Hendricks then went on to describe his downfall at welterweight.
“I think that’s when you’re at your all-time low. You lose three in a row, you miss weight twice, what do you do? You sit there and say, ‘You know what? I’m done.’ After this last fight at ’70, as soon as I stepped off the scale, I looked at Joe Silva and said, ‘I’m an ‘85er.’ I’ll never see welterweight again. I refuse to go back there.”
