Former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks announced his retirement from mixed martial arts Wednesday, effectively ending a 12-year professional career.
Hendricks, 34, broke the news on MMAJunkie Radio. He finishes his storied career with an 18-8 mark, which includes a 13-8 record in the UFC.
A two-time NCAA national wrestling champion at Oklahoma State University, Hendricks, who lives in Texas, said he intends to coach wrestling at a college prep school.
"I'm done. I'm retiring. I'm getting out of the MMA world," Hendricks told MMAJunkie. "I've been thinking about this long and hard for a while. I'm going to get back to my roots. I'm going to start coaching at All Saints' [Episcopal School in Fort Worth]. I coached a little bit of high school last year, but I'm going to make the move over to All Saints' and start doing those things."
Hendricks asserted himself as the No. 1 welterweight in the world in 2014. He claimed the UFC's 170-pound championship by defeating Robbie Lawler in a razor-thin unanimous decision at UFC 171 in Dallas.
After reaching that pinnacle, however, Hendricks struggled to a 2-6 record the remainder of his career. He lost the belt in an immediate rematch against Lawler and was plagued by weight issues -- including an incident in 2015 in which he was hospitalized during a weight cut. He moved up to middleweight in 2017, where he recorded a 1-2 record.
In March, Hendricks told ESPN that he was considering a move back to 170 pounds. He visited the UFC Performance Institute to discuss a dietary plan, but those intentions obviously changed in recent months.
Although he is still relatively young to retire, Hendricks virtually closed the door to any return. He said he wouldn't even have interest in a rematch against Georges St-Pierre, to whom he lost in controversial fashion in 2014.
"Even if you threw Georges St-Pierre at me, the world knows [I beat him]," Hendricks said. "Realistically, I'm satisfied. Unless they say, 'Johny, here's a million-dollar payday. Come fight this dude.' You can't turn that down. That would be stupid. But everything I set my mind to, I achieved it. That's the gist of what I'm feeling at this moment and what I've been feeling the last month."
Before fighting in the UFC, Hendricks made two appearances in the WEC. Despite his wrestling background, he built a reputation as one of the hardest hitters at welterweight, with highlight knockouts over Martin Kampmann and Jon Fitch.