Tim Boetsch and Johny Hendricks help figure out middleweight’s almost elite this June 25, 2017 at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
One sentence summary:
Phil: Get on your jeans and plaid shirts and get in your truck for just ’bout the most midwestern fight the UFC has put on in a minute
David: Flannel meets cattle in this war at gatekeeper weight.
Stats:
Record: Tim Boetsch 20-11 Johny Hendricks 18-6
Odds: Tim Boetsch +165 Johny Hendricks -175
History / Introduction to Both Fighters
David: His heavy frame, and Rob Zombie scripted pugilism give him the appearance of a man who has been regularly fueled by shepard’s pie and clobbering time since birth. I didn’t learn until recently that he had another nickname – Boetsch N’Hoes. I’m not sure how I feel about that other than it might be more MMA than Face the Pain. His quality of competition is first rate, and he still looks like he knows his way around the fight kitchen. How withered are the tools, however?
Phil: Boetsch has been given an incredibly brutal schedule of fights. It’s always tough to be an overperforming blue-collar fighter, because it means that you instantly become the guy to get the other fighters on the come-up. People remembered Boetsch from the Okami comeback KO, so it made sense to put him up against Jacare, or Rockhold, or a debuting Hector Lombard. In that time he’s put on some more than respectable performances, and even when it looked like he was on the downslope, he managed to pull out of the dive, subsequently levelling out at exactly that top 15-ish spot he’s maintained for so many years.
David: I don’t know when it started. Was it fumbling around the distinction between VADA and WADA like a smug first year grad student? Maybe it was claiming he lost a close decision to GSP because he was punching him at 70%? Because he’s a Texan who doesn’t know how to cook his meat? Perhaps it was his ridiculous truck?
I feel like missing weight is the least among significant reasons as to why MMA fans turned on Hendricks. Even more than his listless performances. Even the Lombard fight, while a return to form, still had the residue of a fighter running on cheap oil.
Phil: Johny Hendricks isn’t exactly a cautionary tale in MMA (he won the belt, after all), but he’s also someone where it’s been difficult to watch his travails and feel a whole lot of sympathy. His tendency to react like a guilty, stubborn teenager to problems which are almost entirely his own fault, such as missing weight, drifting out of fights, missing weight and also missing weight have not exactly endeared him to the fanbase.
Now it feels a like he’s living on borrowed time in the UFC. He simply doesn’t have the frame (or, I’d contest, the style) for middleweight, and if he can’t even make 185 then the writing is on the wall.
What’s at stake?
Phil: Boetsch isn’t going anywhere, so this is a referendum on Hendricks. If he loses this one after missing weight again, I think there’s a serious chance that he gets cut. Bellator can try to risk using him to bulk up their 185 division (no pun intended), or he can go into the restaurant business full time.
David: Middleweight needs quality gatekeepers. Losing either one to Bellator would be a modest loss. Like a strong middle class, guys like Boetsch and Hendricks are central to facepunching economy. Hendricks is a good bet to be cut though. It would be deserved too.
Where do they want it?
Phil: Boetsch, like Hendricks, has become a lot more patient with experience. He understands that he’s not going to be able to bull his way into the clinch without taking some damage. I’d argue the most significant development he’s made is in gradating his power. Rather than just winging his shots, he’s actually got a decent amount of subtlety behind his right hand in particular, where he’ll throw it as a testing shot, pull it back, or even throw it as a kind of soft shift punch (similar to what McGregor does with his left hand) to keep the opponent unsure of just how hard and fast it can travel.
Other than that he retains his powerful clinch and top games. These are not terribly technical, and he relies a bit too much on his strength- against more physically powerful fighters who can break through the strength barrier he’s in serious trouble. That’s probably not Hendricks though.
David: Boetsch has a simplistic reputation that belies his intelligence. For the most part, any successful fighter without obvious talents is an intelligent fighter. And Boetsch is intelligent. He has an acute awareness about how to approach what a pretentious analyst might call a “zone entry” – a kind of catch all term for getting into position for striking/grappling distance. He doesn’t need to punch his way into proximity. He just sort of measures and calibrates, able to angle for offense when need be, and effective at punishing opponents in proximity.
Phil: Hendricks has been through many different incarnations: pure wrestler, winging brawler, one-hit KO machine, and combination kickboxer. Now, it seems like he’s settled into being a counterpuncher. Which is quite an odd choice for middleweight, but it seems that he’s decided to let his opponents come to him to make up for the reach differentials he’s going to be on the wrong end of. He still has a clean counter left hand, and that stepping knee which he used so well against GSP has been money for countering head-slips and level changes.
I’m not sure if Hendricks’ wrestling makes an appearance in this fight. He tried shooting on Lombard, and that didn’t work. Boetsch is not the defensive wrestler that Olympic Judoka Hector Lombard is, but he’s also much more offensively dangerous in the clinch. It’s a bit more of a gamble, essentially.
David: Hendricks resembles the profile of a fighter still going through a mid-fight crisis. The last time he fought at welterweight he got blitzed, discarded, and thrown into the trash heap. I think that changed his general approach to fighting. At the same time the weight cutting was making him physically incapable of even holding a spoon made of coal that could be recycled into BBQ seasoning. It’s the only way to explain why such a once elite fighter could look so bad – too many elements converged to make him look like s—.
At his best, he’s a stout, puck shaped weapon of violence. Like a puck, he’s one vulcanized rubber slapshot away from shutting out the lights. He has a wonderful sense of timing with his straight left, and a keen sense of velocity – it’s rare to see a fighter double up on a straight left or right, and Hendricks can do so comfortably (as he did against Carlos Condit). With his quickness, and accuracy, he’s still a reasonable danger even at half speed.
Another feature of Hendricks’ game worth pointing out is a pet theory of mine. One of the reasons why boxing and MMA boxing look so different, other than the inclusion of literally everything else besides punching, is fight ‘seal level’ (or what’s called the eyeline). In boxing, footwork is merely one among many elements that make up range interaction and measurement. Another one is being able to duck, bob, weave, and fight below punches rather than merely around them (Tyson was a master of this). This is basically absent in MMA. In part because of knees and kicks of course. Hendricks being 5’8 allows him to start out below an opponent’s boxing just on physics alone. I rewatched the first Robbie Lawler fight the other day and Hendricks’ boxing was some serious grown man s—. In close he was an absolute terror and I just don’t think he would work any other way if he were taller.
Insight from past fights?
Phil: The common opponent they both have is Lombard, and they both won against him (although Boetsch debatably got a bit lucky with the judges). The strange thing was how low-paced both fights were, which indicates to me that while this one is being thought of as being an awesome scrap between two hard-nosed brawlers, it might actually be quite a slow-paced fight where they both just look for their respective power hand?
David: In addition to the rhythm of the fight, it’s useful to ask whether Hendricks’ fight against Lombard was a feature of his game moving forward. I don’t know that it was. I felt like Lombard just had that weird stone foot left hand doom Hendricks had to respect.
X-Factors
Phil: I can’t believe Hendricks missed weight again. OK, yes I can. Easily. So I guess the question is, how much does it effect him? Did he try his hardest to get down, and so is going to be drained, or did he just realize that it wasn’t going to happen, and said screw it, I’m not cutting any more?
David: He was probably pissed the MMA press didn’t lose 20lbs like he did. His mindset going into this fight is an active worry for me.
Prognostication
Phil: I don’t have much confidence in this one. I don’t really trust Hendricks not to sourly drift out of the fight. However, he has too many technical advantages, and I’d argue he’s probably actually more durable than Boetsch at this stage. Boetsch’s newfound crafty pressure style could give Hendricks fits, but Johny Hendricks by split decision.
David: Everytime Hendricks has missed weight, he has looked like the poop emoji with a beard and a dumb truck. Not only that but his outbursts toward the press feels less like teenage angst, and more like his body shutting down. I’ve never been confident in Boetsch. He lost to Ed Herman and Jason Brilz, after all. But Hendricks has a hard enough time fighting his weight. Fighting his weight AND Boetsch feels like a bridge too far. Especially in Hendricks’ boxing centric phase. Tim Boetsch by Decision.