In the Octagon, Johny Hendricks looks like a left-handed Leonidas who grunts when he sleeps.
He charges with enough reckless abandon to make the Juggernaut (NSFW) retreat like he just messed with Sasquatch.
If Dracula drank Hendricks’ blood, he’d wake up with a hangover from getting drunk with power.
You get the point: Johny Hendricks is intimidating.
But outside of the cage, his demeanor flips the script and is infinitely more serene. Hendricks seems less like a hard-hitting cage fighter and more like a camp counselor ready to hand out pamphlets and oatmeal cookies.
Recently, the welterweight No. 1 contender shot the breeze with MMAWeekly.com and touched upon his upcoming UFC 167 bout vs. Georges St-Pierre.
Judging from his responses, Hendricks tends to see life through a long-sighted lens.
Firstly, the bearded brawler revealed that he naturally walks around at 215 to 220 pounds. Considering welterweights often tip the scales at (roughly) 175 on fight night, the 40-plus-pound cut explains why he resembles a pocket-sized Paul Bunyan in the Octagon.
Hendricks proceeded to raise a few eyebrows by referring to UFC 167 as “Hendricks-GSP I.” When asked about the added number, he giddily grinned and offered, “I know I have to beat him twice.”
The stone-fisted contender explained:
I’ve got to beat him twice. I’m not going to beat him once and get away with it. I’ve got to beat him twice, unless it’s just a…blowout for me. You know, that’s the only way that it’s not going to happen. But if I go out there and knock him out in the first round, there’s going to be GSP [vs. Hendricks] II.
If Hendricks follows through and upsets St-Pierre, UFC president Dana White will find himself staring at a pot-bellied cash cow. Hendricks, who was born in Oklahoma and trains in nearby Dallas, Texas, has already expressed interest in holding a potential rematch at Jerry Jones’ AT&T Stadium (home of the Dallas Cowboys and the world’s largest epileptic nightmare).
In the history of American-hosted UFC events, Dallas drew the second-highest attendance with 17,428 spectators at UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort (2009). The recently renovated AT&T Stadium seats 80,000 ticket holders.
Texans clearly like their cage fights.
If White signed off on a grudge match that pinned a would-be local champion against a future legend, connecting the dots makes out a paycheck that could dwarf the overhead screen.
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