Johny Hendricks Looking Forward To Fight With Tim Boetsch

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Johny Hendricks (18-6 MMA, 13-6 UFC) spoke about his excitement for his UFC Fight Night 112 bout with Tim Boetsch (20-11 MMA, 11-10 UFC) on June 25. Here are highlights:

On how excited he is for the fight: “I am looking forward to this one. I already hear what everybody’s saying, how (Tim Boetsch) is bigger than me, so he’s got tot be stronger than me. And, you know what, I’m quicker than those guys. And I’m actually trained for this fight. And I’m so excited to see what I can do with a guy who used to fight at 205. If I go out there, and I can manhandle a guy who used to fight at 205, what does that mean? That I can move up to 205, then? [laughs] I would have to be absolutely nuts to say I can compete at 205.”

On how he’s changed since moving to 185: “I can train hard again. I can be excited about going in there and doing things. This last fight, it was so weird, because I got to actually see punches coming at me again. Instead of just standing there, your coach yells something at you, you want to pull the trigger but body is saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ That’s what I’ve been fighting for a while now. I was actually able to be a complete fighter again. More than anything, not cutting to 170, I think I was pulling too much water out of my whole body. I know that for a fact, because whenever your kidney shuts down, that’s a result of that. Second is that, whenever a punch is coming at you, you’ve got to have fluid in your brain to be able to take a punch, to recognize that you’re in the game.”

On the fight with Boetsch: “He’s going to throw a couple of leg kicks, and they’re not going to be something he wants kill you with. But he wants to set up his hands. Knowing that, but he’s going to be a guy who’s just going to try to bully me. That’s sort of the way I went into the Hector Lombard fight. It’s that there’s a guy who’s going to want to try to pressure forward. He has knockout power, but he’s going to try to push forward, push his pace. And if you can knock him off their pace, then everything starts landing in your favor. And that’s sort of what I have to do with Tim. I have to go out there, I have to not let him think he’s being the dominant fighter.”

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