A new episode of Inside MMA on AXS TV premiered on Friday night before RFA 11 and featured interviews with Johny Hendricks and Rich Franklin.
Hendricks discussed his close split decision defeat against Georges St-Pierre, which the mixed martial arts community is still talking about.
AXS TV reporter Ron Kruck asked Hendricks about the comments that St-Pierre made at the post fight press conference about not being able to sleep.
“Dude I’ve got three kids,” Hendricks said. “You know what I’m saying? Talk about sleep? Are you kidding me? Everybody’s got problems in life. That’s the way it is. If you can’t handle being champion, give it up. We chose to get into that octagon, we chose not to sleep. I don’t know how many times I’ve went to bed at five, six o’clock in the morning and woke up at 10, running four miles because I wanted to beat GSP that bad. Dude, who cares. I chose this life. Tell yourself whatever you need to. Just get back in that octagon with me. I can’t wait for the rematch.”
Also on last night’s episode, former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin confirmed that is next fight will be his last. He made the decision that his next fight would be his last following his defeat against Cung Le, since he knew he was no longer in title contention.
“You know, I lost my last fight, and that really kind of solidified my decision to make this my last fight coming up,” Franklin said. “I know that took me out of title contention and so for me to get back into the title hunt would be a couple years’ worth of work and I know that. I’m 39, I’ll be 40 next year and it’s getting to the point where it’s late in my life and it’s really too late to have that title run so I started questioning, what am I really fighting for, if I can’t make it to the title anymore? I know I’m not in title contention anymore and I realize that so, that’s how it is.”
Both of the interviews with Hendricks and Franklin are below, including the full 13 minute interview with Hendricks.