Ex-UFC Welterweight Champ Johny Hendricks Retires After 10-Year MMA Career

Former UFC Welterweight champion Johny Hendricks announced his retirement from MMA on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old Hendricks made it official during an appearance on MMAjunkie Radio (h/t Matt Erickson of MMAjunkie.com):

"I'm done. I'm retiring. I'm getting out of the MMA world. 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. 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."

During a professional MMA career that spanned 10 years, Hendricks went 18-8.

Hendricks last fought at UFC 217 in November when he lost to Paulo Costa by second-round TKO.

He revealed Wednesday that the way he felt during his layoff since that fight contributed to his decision to retire:

"One of the things that's nice is being home the last seven months, spending time with the kids, not worrying about what I needed to do. I looked at my wife and said, 'Do we really want to do this. I know I'm the one who has to do it, but do we want to do it? Do we want to go through the grind that I used to do, be gone for long periods of time, put my family second, do those kids of things?' Right now, I can't really say that. I made this decision two weeks ago, but I prayed about it and wanted to make sure I was going to be OK with it."

Hendricks famously went the distance against Georges St-Pierre at UFC 167 in 2013 and controversially lost be split decision.

He then went on to beat Robbie Lawler for the UFC Welterweight title at UFC 171 in 2014 before dropping the belt to Lawler in a rematch at UFC 181.

Hendricks struggled to pick up wins in recent years, as he lost five of his final six bouts.

The last win of Hendricks' career came at UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Browne in 2017 when he defeated Hector Lombard by unanimous decision.