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Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks is looking to make big changes to his professional MMA career. Some fight fans might not know that Hendricks is currently a free agent. A big part of that is due to his performance inside the Octagon und…
Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks is looking to make big changes to his professional MMA career. Some fight fans might not know that Hendricks is currently a free agent. A big part of that is due to his performance inside the Octagon under the UFC banner. By looking at his fight history, he is […]
The post Johny Hendricks Sets Sights On Weight Class Change appeared first on MMA News.
When is enough enough? For many of the best MMA fighters, that’s the toughest question to answer when it comes to ending their own careers in the cage. Whether it’s due to their natural fighting instincts, their continued need to make ends meet, a stubborn refusal to accept that their time has come and gone, […]
The post 10 Veteran UFC Stars Who Should Hang Up Their Gloves appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.
When is enough enough? For many of the best MMA fighters, that’s the toughest question to answer when it comes to ending their own careers in the cage.
Whether it’s due to their natural fighting instincts, their continued need to make ends meet, a stubborn refusal to accept that their time has come and gone, or just scant regard for their own well-being, many veteran stars end up delaying the inevitable far longer than they should.
The consequences for that can be devastating, and in this article, we’ll look at 10 high-profile UFC stars who have already traveled far down that path as they continue to put their long-term health and legacies at risk by delivering subpar performances and enduring repeated beatdowns in the Octagon.
Fighting is a fast-paced, notoriously unforgiving contest.
To be clear, we, as fans and/or writers can never tell a fighter when he or she should hang up their gloves, but at a certain point, it becomes difficult to watch our once-great idols sustain what could be life-altering trauma, and that pales in comparison to the heartache suffered by that fighter and their own family. With that said, let’s take a look at 10 formerly elite combatants who could avoid all (or at last most) of that by walking away right now.
For many years, Sanchez was hailed as having one of the best chins in the game, holding a proud record of having only being stopped once (due to a cut) in 34 fights stretched over a 14-year period, despite having been in numerous brutal and bloody battles from featherweight all the way up to middleweight.
Then in July of 2016 at the historic UFC 200 event, his chin finally gave way when Joe Lauzon flattened him in just 86 seconds.
Though he did win his next fight, worse was to come in 2017 as Sanchez suffered back-to-back knockouts against Al Iaquinta and Matt Brown in a matter of minutes.
Even before this recent decline, Sanchez’s penchant for slugfests had led to concerns that he was taking too much punishment in the Octagon, and if it hadn’t been for highly controversial split decision victories over Takanori Gomi and Ross Pearson, he would have been on a six-fight losing streak from 2012-2015.
Nevertheless, the 35-year-old warrior’s fighting spirit still burns bright and so he’s vowed not to retire, and unfortunately, with his record showing that he’s never lost more than two fights in a row, he’ll likely be allowed to continue to compete even though it’s clearly against his best interests.
The post 10 Veteran UFC Stars Who Should Hang Up Their Gloves appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.
There he was—a former champion looking to be in the best physical shape he’d seen for quite some time.
Bizarre weigh-in day antics notwithstanding, he was more taut and fit and had a training camp behind him with a new team of coaches—some …
There he was—a former champion looking to be in the best physical shape he’d seen for quite some time.
Bizarre weigh-in day antics notwithstanding, he was more taut and fit and had a training camp behind him with a new team of coaches—some of the best in the world. Give him a year at Jackson Wink MMA Academy and no one would beat him, he said.
Someone did, though. Fast. It took a little over six minutes.
That former champion was Johny Hendricks, and on the enormous stage of UFC 217 in New York City, the man to beat him was Paulo Costa, Brazil’s next big thing.
Perhaps Brazil’s next UFC legend.
Paulo Costa, otherwise known as Paulo Borrachinha until a sudden rebranding struck his fancy under the lights of Manhattan, is It with a capital “I.” He’s the man Brazilian fans have been waiting for, the fighter to take the mantle of his country’s great fighting hope from names like Jose Aldo and Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort and Royce Gracie before him.
Chiseled from granite and with the looks of a model, Costa is 11-0 with 11 stoppages in his MMA career. Only two men have gotten out of the first round with him, and only one wasn’t knocked out for daring to tackle “The Eraser.”
His athleticism is impressive and, while he was a bulldozer in his earlier days, he showed against Hendricks that he understands the value of a measured approach to the game. For a competitor of such musculature, he did not burn himself out, waiting to finish the fight at the right time after breaking up explosive attacks with more deliberate stretches of offense.
It was the type of thing that athletes with 40 fights sometimes struggle with, that great champions have had to overcome or adjust to. To see a relatively green fighter understand his body so well, in such an environment and against such an opponent, was highly promising.
After his win, he got on the mic with Joe Rogan and, as is always well-received by the North American audience, attempted to communicate his jubilation.
The fans responded, just as they did when Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Junior dos Santos and a host of other Brazilian stars have attempted to speak in their second language. And suddenly Costa had officially taken over the world’s most famous city.
The performance was the type to get him attention beyond the fanbase as well.
It scored him an exclusive in-studio interview with Ariel Helwani on a special edition of The MMA Hour, one of the sport’s foremost interview shows. The only other man to appear on that episode? New middleweight champion and living legend Georges St-Pierre.
Pretty good company to keep.
After Costa’s 217 bout, top-ranked middleweight Derek Brunson—fresh off blowing Machida away on a card in Brazil a couple of weeks ago—took to Twitter to sass Costa. Emoji steroid accusations and proclamations of easy money buoyed that sass, along with a picture of Costa sporting a questionable choice of hairstyle.
Costa fired back, saying he’d make Brunson famous in his “score of knockouts.”
It’s the stuff great MMA feuds are made of.
But whether it’s Brunson or another middleweight contender, Costa has arrived. He’s undeniably a work in progress at 26 years old, but he’s one of the most promising projects Brazil has had on its hands in years.
Unlike the faux prospects that came before him, filling out The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil and riding the UFC hype machine for as long as they were trying to expand their South American footprint, Costa did it the right way.
He appeared on the show, lost and then took five more regional fights to round himself out before getting another crack at the big show. This is not a creation of the UFC, a man they decided to push in the name of selling shows to Globo TV—this is a legitimate talent who built himself the way the greats that came before him did.
He showed it Saturday, when the results spoke for themselves. Continue on that path, and he may very well see his name up there next to those greats before long.
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Johny Hendricks will need to figure something out to get over his rough stretch. This past Saturday night (Nov. 4), Hendricks took on Paulo Costa in the opening main card bout of UFC 217. “Big Rigg” was finished in the second round due to s…
Johny Hendricks will need to figure something out to get over his rough stretch. This past Saturday night (Nov. 4), Hendricks took on Paulo Costa in the opening main card bout of UFC 217. “Big Rigg” was finished in the second round due to strikes. The former welterweight kingpin is now 1-5 in his last […]
Johny Hendricks still believes he can return to form. Hendricks has gone 1-4 in his last five outings, but finds himself back on the main card of a pay-per-view event. He’ll meet Paulo Borrachinha this Saturday night (Nov. 4) at UFC 217. The acti…
Johny Hendricks still believes he can return to form. Hendricks has gone 1-4 in his last five outings, but finds himself back on the main card of a pay-per-view event. He’ll meet Paulo Borrachinha this Saturday night (Nov. 4) at UFC 217. The action takes place inside Madison Square Garden in New York City. Ariel Helwani […]
Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks hasn’t had the best results in his last several Octagon appearances, but after making a change in his training camp, “Big Rigg” feels as though he’ll be unstoppable in mixed martial arts (MMA) competition after a year. Hendricks has dropped four of his last five fights inside the Octagon […]
The post Johny Hendricks Says He’ll Beat Anyone After A Year With JacksonWink appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.
Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks hasn’t had the best results in his last several Octagon appearances, but after making a change in his training camp, “Big Rigg” feels as though he’ll be unstoppable in mixed martial arts (MMA) competition after a year.
Hendricks has dropped four of his last five fights inside the Octagon to the likes of Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, Kelvin Gastelum, Neil Magny, and Tim Boetsch. His last victory came this past February when he took a unanimous decision win over Hector Lombard. The 34-year-old’s last Octagon appearance saw him suffer a second round TKO loss to Boetsch this past Summer.
Now Hendricks is expected to take on undefeated middleweight prospect Paulo Borrachinha at this weekend’s (Sat. November 4, 2017) UFC 217 pay-per-view (PPV) event from Madison Square Garden. During a recent media scrum Hendricks discussed the match-up and was also asked about his recent switch over to Jackson-Wink.
Hendricks proceeded to make a very bold claim in that he feels nobody will be able to beat him inside the cage after spending a year with the famed camp:
“I loved it,” Hendricks said. “Love Jacksons. One of the reasons why I went there is because they’ve already trained for me a couple of times. They’ve been on the opposite side of me. So they know what kind of fighter I was, and what kind of fighter I want to be now. And, you know, Jackson, he’s so smart when it comes to that aspect.
“And then Wink, he’s right there with him. You know those two put together, and you throw my boxing coach in there – Man, like, in a year – I really believe this – You give me a year with those three; Jackson, Wink, and my boxing coach Tony, I don’t think anybody beats me on my feet. I don’t think anybody beats me in a year.”
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