Bigg Rigg Challenge 2 | Day 1: Camp Begins
Johny Hendricks rules.
For the uninitiated, Hendricks is a recently retired professional mixed martial artist. He trained UFC¹—and for a stretch of time, he dominated. Hendricks won the UFC championship in 2014, which, for a professional fighter, is like hoisting the Stanley Cup or the Lombardi Trophy.
The UFC belt is it.
Long before he stepped into the cage, Hendricks dominated wrestling mats across the country, winning three state championships and two national championships in high school before adding two more national titles at the collegiate level during his stay at Oklahoma State University.
In high school, he summited the athletic mountain.
In college, he did the same.
In the UFC? Ditto.
At some point at every level in his athletic career, Hendricks could say, “I am the best.” And it would be true.
…Which makes his fall from grace almost comical.²
Once Hendricks started to lose, he really started to lose.
For context: In his first 20 fights, Hendricks lost three times—all via decision.
In his last six fights, Hendricks lost five times—two via decision and three via knockout.
But nobody wrecked Johny Hendricks like the scale.
“Bigg Rigg” missed weight in three of his last five fights, proving his dropoff wasn’t geo-restricted to the Octagon. Nah, he was falling apart everywhere, and it was kinda spectacular to behold.
Making weight goes like this: You sign a fight contract to show up weighing a certain amount or less. For much of Hendricks’ career, the target number was either 170 or 171³. One day before the fight, he would step on a scale, and the number needed to read 171 or below.
In back-to-back bouts in 2016, however, Hendricks did not weigh 171 or below. He weighed 171.25 and 173.5, prompting him to move up a weight class, which shifted his target weight from 171 to 186.
With 15 fewer pounds to lose, Hendricks’ job became much, much easier.
Or not.
In his second fight in the new division, he weighed 188.
Things got so out of control during this stretch he actually challenged the media to cut weight. If it was so easy, if he was so unprofessional, why don’t you do it then?!
OK.
Hendricks’ challenge to the media was this: Lose 20 pounds in six weeks.
My dude Duane Finley and I took him up on it, and we crushed it with time to spare.
It’s an unfair challenge.
We have weight to lose. We are not chiseled, athletic machines. Our bodies are not destroyed from years upon years of a fighter’s grind.
But it makes losing weight more fun with Hendricks wielding the cattle prod, so it is what it is, y’know what I mean?
With Hendricks recently retired and with our bodies puffing back up after the original challenge, Ol Bo Finley and I will dust off the running shoes, drain-pour the brews, and fire up the blenders to renew the Bigg Rigg Weight Challenge.
This time, the target won’t be to lose 20 pounds in six weeks. Instead, we need to weigh in under 200 pounds.
For Ol Bo, that’ll mean losing at least 36.1 pounds, as he clocked in at exactly 236.0 this morning.
For me, it’s almost identical.⁴
Basically, I need to lose 35 pounds.
The good news is this: I need to lose 35 pounds anyway.
The bad news: I love beer and food, man. A whole lot.
It’s all in true Bigg Rigg style, though. He liked burgers and fries. He went on record saying his new diet strategy could include Whataburger—as long as he didn’t get the fries.
Visionary.
You gotta give up something for this to become a challenge at all, and while I’m positive Ol Bo and I will tip the scales at 199.9 or below in short order, I’m also positive we’re going to be found sobbing in the cooler of a beer distributor in approximately 22 days.
That’s the way she goes, Bubs.
For now, this serves as Day 1. It’s past noon, and I haven’t eaten anything. I chugged two glasses of water to kickstart my day and I followed them with three cups of black coffee.
My stomach hates me already.
Let’s go.
¹ Please don’t say “trained UFC.” That was a joke. It’s like saying you “train NFL.” The sport is MMA. The organization is the UFC. Knowledge is power.
² OK, there’s no “almost” about it. Late-career Hendricks was pure comedy.
³ In non-title fights, a fighter can show up one pound over the divisional limit. For Hendricks, a welterweight, that meant he could weigh 170 + 1 if the title was not on the line.
⁴ How weird are bodies? That’s 0.4 pounds away from what I started at last time. Apparently, if I eat whatever the hell I want, drink too much beer, and sit for 15 hours a day, I weigh 233 – 235.