Full Circle in Philly

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Philadelphia has become known to many as a breeding ground for exceptional pugilists. Ring generals such as Bernard Hopkins and Joe Frazier call the city home, along with fictitious brawler Rocky Balboa. Even mixed martial artists seem to regard it as hallowed ground for combat, as evidenced by the pre-fight comments of UFC 133 headliners Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz.

For rising welterweight Johny Hendricks, the City of Brotherly Love holds a different kind of significance. Philadelphia was the site of his promotional debut -- a scorching, 29-second technical knockout of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 7 winner Amir Sadollah at UFC 101. Two years and five Octagon appearances later, Hendricks believes UFC 133 at the Wells Fargo Center will serve as a homecoming of sorts.

“One thing that is pretty sweet is that I get to return to [the site] of my first UFC fight. This is sort of my starting ground,” Hendricks tells Sherdog.com. “Coming back to Philly is what’s nice, not just the historical stuff. That’s what makes it special for me.”

Though his return to Philadelphia may be special, Hendricks does not expect to receive a warm welcome in the cage. On the contrary, the hard-nosed Mike Pierce -- the man who fought former title contender Jon Fitch tooth-and-nail in a three-round decision loss at UFC 107 -- awaits Hendricks. Since the loss to Fitch, Pierce has racked up three consecutive Octagon wins. A former collegiate wrestler at Portland State University, Pierce has become known for throwing power shots and digging for takedowns in order to batter opponents with ground-and-pound.

“He’s going to throw a couple of punches, but he doesn’t care if those punches land. If they don’t land, then he’s going to get to a single-leg or a double-leg. He might hang out there for a little bit just for that one moment to take you down,” says Hendricks. “Then he’s going to throw punches and make it so you don’t get stood back up. That’s the way he likes to do it, and it works for him.

“How do I beat a guy like that? That’s what I like to figure out. That’s challenging to me,” he adds. “I’ve watched a lot of his fights and studied him and started going over a game plan. That kind of stuff is fun for me.”

According to Hendricks, Pierce shares stylistic similarities to a former opponent: Rick Story. In a hard-fought, three-round affair, Story handed Hendricks his only loss to date at “The Ultimate Fighter 12” Finale in December. Though Pierce has openly disagreed with the comparisons, Hendricks believes his observation to be accurate.

“Yeah, I think [Story and Pierce are similar]. I think that’s why [Pierce] got mad at me, because he thinks that he’s nothing like Rick Story,” says Hendricks. “But Rick Story is a tough fighter, and [Pierce] is a lot like him.”

Regarding the Story defeat, Hendricks admits the setback made him work harder, but it does not keep him up at night obsessing about a rematch.

“It motivates me, but do I [actively] want a rematch? No, because if we’re all going to be playing that game, then I’ve got to give 10 other people [who I beat] a rematch,” says Hendricks, who rebounded from the loss with a first-round technical knockout against Anthony Waldburger at UFC Fight Night 24 in March. “That’s just not the way that this fight game is. You only get three chances a year -- if you’re lucky, four -- to make your mark, so you really have to focus on giving a good performance. Can you do it every time? No, but you try to minimize [setbacks] and try to look your best every time you show up.”

As Hendricks tells it, he made a bevy of mistakes in his loss to Story, mistakes -- now corrected -- from which he has learned.

“The things I learned from the fight are all about what I did badly. Whenever I got against the cage, as soon as I got off the cage I would only throw one punch at a time. That’s something that I had to change,” says Hendricks.

“Also, I’ve been working on reacting in different ways to takedowns. Also, [I’ve learned more about] when to close the distance and when to separate and [create] distance. A loss helps you learn those things. I’m trying to correct everything I can think of.”

Just prior to his defeat to Story, Hendricks moved his family from Las Vegas to Texas. Now residing in the Dallas area, he asserts that the move had little to do with his fighting career. Instead, he packed his belongings for the Lone Star State to benefit his infant daughter.

“I knew I had to get out of there. I just didn’t want to raise my daughter in Las Vegas. I’m more of a Southern person, so I wanted to get back to the country and family ties and all of that stuff,” says Hendricks. “We started taking my daughter to parks [in Las Vegas], and people just weren’t as friendly. I just don’t want my daughter being raised that way. We can raise her a certain way, but if she goes out and does something with her friends, who’s to say that they’re that way?”

Now 27, Hendricks was a two-time NCAA wrestling champion (2005-06) at Oklahoma State University. Since relocating to Dallas in September, the grappler has ironed out his training schedule to allow for new experiences at different facilities.

“I’ve been traveling from place to place, bouncing around but having a structured schedule. We’ve been going to three or four different gyms. It’s nice, because, in a moment, you can go anywhere in Texas and people will let you train with them,” Hendricks says. “I have four different gyms I can train at, and that’s four different groups of bodies that I’m not familiar with. It’s not a big thing to drive 100 miles in one day.”

In addition to his regular training regimen, Hendricks has recently made an effort to reconnect with his roots by returning to Oklahoma State to work out with the wrestling team. Despite his considerable pedigree on the mat, the welterweight continually tries to upgrade his wrestling while refining the rest of his MMA toolbox.

“The guys who I’m fighting now aren’t just guys who can do standup. If I’m fighting a standup guy, I don’t have to worry about doing so much wrestling, but now, the guys in Top 10, Top 20, they’re wrestlers,” Hendricks says. “I really want to make sure that every fight I’m getting better as a whole fighter. My hands and everything are getting there. Now I just need to make sure I can intertwine everything.

“MMA and wrestling are two different things,” he adds. “I wrestle with some of the guys at Oklahoma State, and they say, ‘I don’t understand how you get taken down, Johny.’ I tell them to put their backs against the wall, and I let them get the best position they can get, and then I take them down very easily. It’s a totally different style of wrestling.”

Hendricks has mentioned leading up to his bout with Pierce that the pain associated with wrestling was simply a part of the game while he was in college. However, in MMA, the four-time collegiate All-American has refined his training methods in an effort to minimize the damage inflicted and sustained in practice.

“You can’t go 100 percent every day. That’s like the last two or three weeks of your camp that you should be focusing 100 percent on every workout. Before that, it’s building up to that 100 percent,” he says. “If you go through an eight-week camp at 100 percent, you’re going to go into the fight with bumps and bruises, and you won’t give the performance you should.

“What you have to do is say, ‘OK, here’s my weak spot. This is where I’m going to focus all my energy,’” Hendricks adds. “I love standup days. I get mad when somebody hits me [too hard], but I try to act like it’s the fight and calm myself down. [I practice] controlling myself and landing my punches.”

Hendricks’ final day of training was July 28. Now, all that remains is completing the weight cut, a process which typically sees him slim down to the 170-pound welterweight limit from about 205 pounds.

As he makes his final preparations for the fight, Hendricks is mindful of Pierce’s status -- or lack thereof -- in the MMA community. Though Pierce is regarded by hardcore fans and insiders as a stiff test for most welterweights, it seems likely that few, if any, casual fans could pick him out of a lineup. That matters little to Hendricks, who views Pierce as more than capable of ruining his return to Philadelphia.

“I’m not going to underestimate [Pierce]. If I did that, then I’d be back down the totem pole,” he says. “Then I’d be worrying about who I’d be fighting next and hoping I beat him, because if I didn’t, I’d probably be cut. The UFC is getting too big to overlook anybody. If you have two bad performances, who’s to say you’re still around?”