When you feel you have done enough to earn a big opportunity and you don’t get it, you wonder why it didn’t happen. Johny Hendricks has that running through his mind. It was announced by Dana White yesterday that UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre told White he doesn’t want to face middleweight champion Anderson Silva or welterweight contender Johny Hendricks for his next fight.
St-Pierre told the UFC President that he wants to square off with former Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz. White said that the welterweight champion told him that he has unfinished business with Diaz and wants that fight next.
Hendricks, who knocked out Martin Kampmann at UFC 154 in 46 seconds, has knocked out two of the top five welterweights in the world in Kampmann and Jon Fitch. He wasn’t thrilled that he was getting bypassed for a shot at St-Pierre.
“I’m pissed and it showed yesterday,” Hendricks told Bleacher Report:
Being pissed and being on Twitter shouldn’t happen. All day yesterday I’m sitting and trying to run through my head, “Why would you (St-Pierre) not want to face me when I’m the number one contender? Why do you want to face somebody that lost (Diaz) his last fight?”
GSP just beat the guy (Carlos Condit) who beat him. He’s (Diaz) has been out for a year. Here I am in that year, I fought all these guys to earn my spot. That’s what I really have been trying to do and that’s earn my way.
To see GSP say that he hates seeing people that talk trash and here he is rewarding a guy and giving him a title shot. I don’t see the logic behind that.
The Oklahoma native feels that St-Pierre doesn’t want to face him because he is the harder fight for the champion. He has also been questioning whether he should have finished Fitch and Kampmann and taken the safer route to victory.
Asked if he feels St-Pierre doesn’t want to face due to being the harder fight, Hendricks stated:
Yes, and that’s what I have said. I think I make too good of a case that I wanted to fight GSP by knocking out these guys. It makes me want to go back and not finish them. That way I do get a shot at GSP.
How sad is that I have to think that way because I want to get a title shot? Here I am yesterday and everybody is like, “You have to be more of a douchebag to get a title shot.”
That kind of stuff made me mad. I don’t want to be that way. Here’s the thing, whenever somebody takes your livelihood and that kind of opportunity away from you, I believe you should be pissed. Everybody is saying, “Johny, quit your crying and whining,” and I’m like, “Guys, it isn’t whining whenever you earn something, you deserve it.”
It just feels like if I didn’t finish these guys and I just would have beat them, I would have gotten a title shot.
Hendricks says if Diaz does fight St-Pierre, he will take another fight if he is told he has to.
I like to fight, I love fighting. If they (UFC) say I have to fight, guess what, I’m an employee of the UFC. If you don’t do what your employer says, you get fired.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand.
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