Johny Hendricks Doesn’t Have An Exit Strategy For MMA

In an interview with The Three Amigos Podcast, Johny Hendricks spoke about his talk of retirement and his long history of fighting. Here are highlights:

On why he didn’t go to AKA for this camp: “I haven’t because I’ve been traveling to Oklahoma State. I want to get out there, I do, and I plan on going out there at some point because DC and Cain and all those guys have been so great to me. It’s nice to know that I have a place to go. I want to get out there and try it out, it’s just that right now, it’s been tough for me to even get to Oklahoma State. If something happens…like I said, my family is more important than anything, and I’d hate to be in California, y’know, since I have a young one. If my wife needs help, I can always leave Oklahoma State and be home in four hours. If I’m in California, it’s gonna be a little harder.”

On considering retirement: “There’s always retirement, right? There’s always gonna be somebody else. There’s always gonna be another person there, and whenever it happens, I will make sure that…I know I’ll miss the sport, as well. I need to get out there and prove that I still want to be here. I see it time and time again with athletes in that we don’t know when to stop. What do I do every day? I wake up, I run, I work out, I push myself to the limit—every day. I don’t know when my body is gonna say, ‘Stop.’ Even though our bodies might want to stop, we still want to push it further. That’s why I say I don’t want to be one of those guys that push it so far, that I can never come back from it.”

On if he has an exit strategy: “Y’know what, I don’t [have an exit strategy]. Y’know what got me into MMA? I prayed about it for two weeks, and the good Lord got me into MMA. That’s sort of the way that I’m gonna go with this, as well. I don’t want to start thinking about Plan B, because if I start thinking that way, then I might as well retire today.”

On his long fighting history: “You know I have [been in some wars], but I’m lucky enough to not have taken very much punishment. Y’know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been hit, but the way that I move my head, I haven’t taken a lot of punishment. You’re right, I do want to remember my kids’ childhood. I do want to remember their name whenever I get older. Right? As an athlete, I can’t think of that at this moment. That’s something where if my wife says, ‘Johny, you’re starting to lose your head,’ then yes, I’ll be like, ‘Okay, you know me best.’ We’ll battle that when we get there, but as of right now, I’m sort of just relaxing, y’know. I’m enjoying the sport that I do love. That’s the thing, I do enjoy it, but what I need to do, is I need to get refocused and recapture…how do you do that? Winning is fun for me; losing, not so much. I don’t want to be doing all this training and put on a performance like I have in the past, and think it’s okay. That’s really what this all boils down to. It’s that I’m disappointed in my fights. They’re so, y’know, they’re so bad for me, that I can’t even…I haven’t even watched ‘em because I’m harder on myself about that.”