Johny Hendricks says ‘clean or not,’ he wants to fight the best Georges St. Pierre at UFC 167

By Chris Taylor - September 11, 2013

UFC welterweight #1 contender Johny Hendricks (15-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) recently turned down an offer from UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre (24-2 MMA, 18-2 UFC), who was willing to ‘foot the bill’ to pay for his and Hendricks’ pre-fight drug tests prior to their main event title fight at UFC 167 in November.

Although generous, Team Hendricks decided to turn down GSP’s offer to pay for the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) drug testing, mainly because the two (GSP and VADA) seem to have some sort of relationship.

According to “Bigg Rigg”, he believes fear is what’s driving the French-Canadian’s camp to push for extra drug tests, as he stated during his recent appearance on “The MMA Hour:”

“I really believe he has a reason to be scared. I think I can beat GSP. You know what I’m saying? I believe it; there’s a part of me that I believe 100 percent that I can beat GSP. Now, if that’s why he’s doing it, to play head games, to do this, to distract me from my actual training, I don’t know, I don’t know GSP. That starts making me, or try to get more people to step up and say, ‘Yeah, we think he is,’ you know what I’m saying? There is a lot of ways that this can play and I’m just not buying it. I know I don’t take steroids. You can test me today, tomorrow, you name the time and I will be there. It’s just that I want to do it with a respectable company that doesn’t have any pull or say or have a foot already in the door.”

Whether or not WADA, a company Hendricks says UFC officials and the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) prefer to administer the tests, will now take the reins, is yet-to-be determined.

Stopping short of saying that “suspect” VADA would manipulate the eventual test results, Hendricks stated he isn’t planning on budging and won’t give in to GSP’s requests by having them handle his test samples, which could potentially affect his MMA career.

However, at the end of the day “Bigg Rigg” doesn’t care if St. Pierre is on the “Juice” or not he just wants to face and defeat the best “Rush” ever this November in Sin City.

“There’s a couple of red flags. I’ll take any (drug test). I don’t like that he has his foot in the door with VADA. You pick anyone but VADA, I’ll take it tomorrow, or in a week. UFC said the Olympic testing (WADA) is the hardest. You give me an hour to take WADA and I will pass it anytime. It’s weird that you would sit there and, instead of taking the toughest, he said he wants to clean this sport up, and here he is pushing somebody that he has a foot in the door. If he was 100 percent not on anything, he would say, ‘Alright, we will do WADA, here’s the money, you pay for it, you set up the time, anytime, anywhere, give me an hour notice and we will do it.’ Here’s the thing, I never pushed doing drug tests. My main thing is, I don’t care if he’s on anything. I just need him to be ready November 16. That’s it. Nothing else matters to me. If he’s clean, then I don’t have nothing to worry about. But what if he’s not. And all of a sudden he’s pushing these drug tests and here it is blowing up so big, he has to take WADA, he fails, then I don’t get my title shot. So that’s why I’m sitting here saying I don’t want the drug tests. I don’t care. I want the best GSP for November 16. That’s all that matters to me is that he shows up to the Octagon with his belt and nothing else.”

This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM


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