Johny Hendricks’ strength and conditioning coach, Adrian Ramirez, recently told MMAjunkie what lead up to the fighter missing weight for his fight at UFC 192 with Tyron Woodley and had to pull out of the scheduled fight.
Here are some key quotes from Ramirez:
– “I think that he just came in too heavy for this camp, and it was just waiting until the last minute before zoning into his diet,” Hendricks’ strength and conditioning coach said. “I think that was the biggest issue he had with this camp. I think it was just waiting until the last minute to really get this weight off.”
– “Last camp, for the fight with Matt Brown, we had made a pact that he wouldn’t get above 195 – and he did that successfully for that camp,” Ramirez said. “He stayed under 195. Last camp was one of the best weight camps we’ve ever had in the history of Johny’s fighting career. He did everything right, stayed on the diet and was where we wanted him to be.
– “This camp he came in around 210 or 205, which is a little too heavy for our liking. I think that’s the biggest factor in this camp – just coming in too heavy and starting his meal prep a little bit too late.”
– “One of the owners of our management team had called, and he had talked to a nutritionist. […] I had never been familiar with him up until we spoke. But our management arranged a conference call with (him), whom we’d never met, and he’d never met Johny. We got on the conference call, and I had a couple concerns, because if you don’t know Johny and know his lifestyle, I feel like you can’t really comment on how much he needs to be eating.
“He was pretty much telling Johny that he should increase his meals because Johny was telling him that he was feeling run down after his training, which is fine. I’m not blaming (him) or anything like that. But I think after that conference call, Johny took what he said and justified that he should start eating more and increasing his calories. Johny isn’t a certified nutritionist or anything like that. He was just taking this guy’s word for it. I think that might have caused a couple issues in the middle of camp.”
“Other than that, Johny started too late on his weight cut, and he has to take full responsibility for that.”
