Will he or won’t he? That’s the question on everyone’s mind when it comes to UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. More specifically, will he or won’t he face UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva or the next time he sets foot inside the Octagon?
And while we don’t know the answer to that question, we do know that top-ranked welterweight contender Johny Hendricks doesn’t plan on taking another fight until he gets his chance to fight for UFC gold.
Hendricks, appearing on MMAJunkie Radio had the following to say about his future, “I’m not going to fight unless it’s for a belt. Nothing else matters but the belt.”
When pushed on the subject and asked if he would take a non-title fight if the UFC asked him to do so, Hendricks plainly stated, “No. I really want a belt. They don’t come around that often and I feel like I’ve done enough to earn a shot for the belt and that’s all that I’m thinking of right now.”
The problem facing Hendricks is, despite running up a five-fight winning streak that included three “Knockout of the Night” bonuses, his name doesn’t ring out nearly as much as the names Anderson Silva or currently suspended Nick Diaz do.
We know that UFC president Dana White wants to see St-Pierre face Silva sometime around May. We also know he thinks he could sell out Dallas Cowboys Stadium with that fight.
As for Diaz, we know that St-Pierre’s head trainer at Tristar Gym in Montreal, Firas Zahabi thinks that Diaz, currently serving out a one-year suspension for testing positive for marijuana metabolites, should be the No. 1 contender for St-Pierre’s crown. And while we know who those two would like to see as St-Pierre’s next opponent, we don’t know who that opponent will actually be.
As far as Hendricks is concerned, he thinks it should be him, but if Diaz gets the shot first, something that Hendricks feels would be undeserved; Hendricks would still sit and wait for his chance at the title.
Hendricks clearly thinks he deserves a shot at the UFC title and if you go by records, rankings and recent performances, you’d be hard pressed to disagree with that thinking. However, we all know that sometimes in a sport that is pay-per-view driven and to some extent driven by the desires of the fans, sometimes “deserves” doesn’t really come into play.
Will Hendricks’ shot at glory be derailed by a more lucrative option for the UFC? It’s possible. Will Hendricks have to sit and wait while the promotion books a fight that the fans have been clamoring for? Again, it’s possible.
If either of the above scenarios plays out, Johny Hendricks may not be a happy man, but by the sounds of it he will patiently wait his turn for his shot at becoming a UFC champion.
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