Below you can watch a relieved Johny Hendricks successfully making weight at the second attempt, giving the green light for his welterweight title fight with Robbie Lawler tonight at UFC 171.
Hendricks had initially come in 1.5lbs overweight for the fight, which caught everyone by surprise, including Dana White who said it was “shocking” since the welterweight has never missed the limit before and had famed dietician Mike Dolce at his side.
‘Bigg Rigg’ was given an extra two hours to cut the additional weight, and luckily he was able to do just that. If he hadn’t been able to then White revealed that the fight would have gone ahead, but Hendricks wouldn’t have been able to claim the title even if he had won. Thankfully no such restriction need apply and both men have a chance at wearing the welterweight strap around their waist.
As for how Hendricks managed to come in heavy, Dolce blames a faulty scale at the hotel for catching them out.
Hendricks looked painfully gaunt at the weigh-ins though and during his first attempt was actually visibly shaking, so it was clearly a tough cut and it’ll be interesting to see if that affects his cardio at all tonight.
Just a few days ago Hendricks indicated that moving up to the middleweight division could happen in the future, and given what happened yesterday, if he loses tonight then perhaps that’ll come sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, if he emerges victorious, then you’ve got to imagine he’ll be committed to staying at 170lbs as long as he possibly can.
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