Hendricks didn't make middleweight weight (Photo: Reproduction/ Facebook UFC)
The knockout suffered against Tim Boetsch at UFC Oklahoma, last Sunday (25), was not the only disappointment experienced by John hendricks this past weekend. Previously, on Saturday (24), the former welterweight champion (up to 77kg) failed the scales for the fourth time in his career and did not reach the middleweight limit (up to 84kg). However, according to the athlete himself, he was unable to continue the weight cutting process after catching a fever in the days leading up to the weigh-in.
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“I started having a fever on Wednesday, for some reason. The fever persisted throughout Thursday and Friday, and I began to think: “My God…”. If anyone feels bad, what does that person do? Stay at home, in bed. My whole family faced health problems in the three months before the fight, and I even laughed at not catching anything. I was very excited. Great, nothing happened. Until you start cutting weight. I showed up with about six kilos over, I think, and drank 4,5 liters of fluids. In this case, you are not only fighting your weight, but also your body. Then, the temperature spiked on Saturday, very late, around 1 or 2 am. When it got really high, we tried to break the fever, but at that point my body was saying, “Hey, right now we’re just going to try to survive.” It sucks, because reaching 84kg isn't that difficult, but when you're sick, it ends up being so,” declared Johny, in an interview with the “Submission Radio” program.
Despite the disappointment of not making weight, Hendricks insists he had no other option. According to Bigg Rigg, he was forced to choose to fight overweight or abandon the duel.
“As I said, it’s not difficult to reach 84 kg. That's why I find it funny when people say, “Oh, he couldn't cut weight again.” You know what, you have no idea. When you get sick you go to the hospital and what do they do? They give you serum to hydrate. Why? Because liquids help you fight what makes you sick. So that's what I was trying to do. I tried not to gain too much weight back, but if it didn't get rid of the disease, what would I do? I wouldn't get the fight. I would play ten weeks of camp away. I was at a dead end”, he concluded.
At 33 years old, Hendricks is going through the worst moment of his career. After fighting a battle against Georges St Pierre and win the belt in the under-77kg category afterwards, by defeating Robbie Lawler by points, the bearded man began to drop in performance. He was dethroned by the same Lawler in his first title defense, beat Matt Brown in the decision and went into total decline. In the last five fights, there were four defeats: he was knocked out by Stephen Thompson, surpassed by points per Kelvin Gastelum e Neil Magny, having failed to make weight on both occasions. The UFC then forced him to move up to middleweight. In his first appearance, he defeated Hector Lombard, but then he was knocked out again, this time by Tim Boetsch.
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