Last year, former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks teased his possible retirement while suffering through the toughest run of his career after losing three fights in a row.
In reality, the losses inside the Octagon couldn’t even come close to the defeat Hendricks endured when stepping on the scale while desperately trying to make the 170-pound weight limit.
Hendricks’ war with weight cutting has been well documented throughout his career, but 2016 brought a whole new slew of challenges as his body just shut down while trying to shed excess pounds during his training camps. It got so bad that Hendricks says he would tell his coaches in the backroom while preparing for a fight that he couldn’t throw certain combinations because the exertion would deplete his gas tank so badly after a rigorous weight cut that he knew there was no way possible he’d make it to the final bell.