DALLAS, TX, August 5, 2011 – This Saturday night in Philadephia features one lone Texas representative fight at UFC 133 in Team Takedown’s Johny Hendricks (10-1). Making his return to the UFC octagon for the first time since his “Knockout of the Night” performance against fellow Texan TJ Waldbuger in March, the former Four-time Division I All-American wrestler and two-time Division I NCAA National Champion from Oklahoma State University will be taking on an fellow wrestler Mike Pierce (12-3) from Portland, Oregon.
Looking at this bout objectively, one can see that this bout features two fighters who may just be carbon copies of one another. Aside from their obvious wrestling backgrounds, the two also arrived in the UFC by way of World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC). Since making their UFC debuts (both in late 2009), the two have blazed similar paths, with Pierce going 4-1 and Hendricks 5-1 in UFC heading into this bout. Even their losses have been similar, to top contenders with Piece falling to John Fitch and Hendricks doing the same against another top contender in Rick Story this past December.
Now coming off that win against TJ, Hendricks will be looking to defeat Mike Pierce as a testament to his continued evolvement as a martial artist. Coincidentally, he’ll also be looking to beat Pierce simply to silence him for accusing Hendricks of being obsessed with his first loss as a pro.
“Whenever I lose, I want to make sure I correct everything,” he said in a recent interview with Bloody Elbow Radio regarding his first loss as a pro to Story, a defeat he still thinks about to this day. “It doesn’t matter who it is, a loss you remember. A win, you don’t remember as much. “A loss, for me, that was my first one, of course I’m going to be sitting there trying to figure out everything I did wrong in there. For him to say I’m obsessed with Rick Story, well that’s fine because Rick Story’s a tough fighter. He’s a good fighter. So for me to be able to correct everything he did to me, that means one thing for him: It means it’s not going to go so well because guess who he is? In my opinion, I don’t think he’s as good as Rick Story. But does that mean Saturday he’s not going to be as good as Rick Story? I don’t know. So for him to say I’m obsessing over Rick Story doesn’t mean crap to me because it was my loss, it was something I had to overcome, and how do I overcome it? By studying the film, by sitting here working on everything I did wrong in that fight to make myself better.”
Tune in to Facebook this Saturday night to watch Texas’ Johny Hendricks continue his evolution as a fighter versus Mike Pierce LIVE during the opening portion of the UFC 133 card. Click here for UFC 133 analysis and predictions right here on TXMMA.com.
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