Kennedy: Big Rigg is a harder fight than Silva or Vitor

UFC middleweight Tim Kennedy spoke with Submission Radio about the potential matchups he sees for himself in the middleweight division. Kennedy says the newest threat to the division is former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks who missed weight for the 170 pound limit at UFC 192.

“That’d be a fun one,” he said on the radio show. “You think he’d make 185 pounds?”

“When he was getting ready to cut to 170, he didn’t even make it past, like 187, right? Like, he was cutting and he was at 187, and they were like ‘whoa, you can’t cut anymore, bro. You’re getting sick’. So I think 185 might be a stretch for him. There are a lot of other guys in the division that I’d be more excited to fight, to include Anderson Silva, who will be coming off, you know, suspension for performance enhancing drugs. The winner of Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson. That’d be a fun fight. You know, against two legends, both of them love their TRT. Lyoto Machida, Nick Diaz. Those are some fun, fun fights. Johnny Hendricks would be, I think a harder fight than all four of those, but it would be a fight that I would be excited for, regardless.”

“I think he’s better. I mean, of all those guys that I just listed, I think Johny Hendricks is better than most of them. Especially stylistically for me, you know, two wrestlers with heavy hands. Stylistically it’s…again, especially compared to Vitor Belfort or Anderson Silva. Both of which, who I think would be very easy fights for me. Style-wise, Johny is a little bit more difficult.”

Kennedy also had very interesting opinions on Dan Henderson.

“Yeah, I’m a bad match up for Dan,” said Kennedy, chuckling. “Let’s just get down to it. It’s not ‘stylistically’. You know, he’s not going to take me down. His wrestling’s not good enough to stop my takedowns, and fundamentally I’m a better striker than he is. So he really has one shot, and that’s going to be his big right hand, ‘H-Bomb’. So that’s getting slower, as h’s weaker with his age, as his chin is. So it’s, you know, I don’t know. We’re kind of both like ‘Go America’ type guys. So that’s not cool. Two America-type guys fighting. And so I think the foundation for what he was saying was: ‘I don’t want to fight Tim because it’s a bad match up for me. I don’t know how I’m gonna beat him, besides maybe landing a lucky punch.’”

Regarding Vitor Belfort, Kennedy had a lot of criticism for “The Phenom.”

“Oh he’s cheater,” Kennedy claimed. “He’s always been a cheater. He’s been cheating since he was like 19 years old. In fact I think he failed his first steroid test when he was like 20 or something. That’s crazy. And now he’s old as hell, and he’s still cheating. So I don’t know why people are acting surprised. I think the biggest story of this is that the UFC, you know, potentially covered this up for him to go ahead and fight in the main event fight. That’s a tragedy. There’s no surprise that Vitor Belfort’s cheating. He’s always been cheating. There’s no surprise there. Like, the guy’s been cheating for forever. So all you guys that love Vitor Belfort, ‘cause he has all these fantastic, fun-to-watch knockouts. Guess what? He’s a cheater. Nothing’s ever changed about him. You’ve seen some things, maybe, evolve in this game slightly. The only thing that’s stayed true is he’s always cheated.”

Who do you want to see Kennedy matched up against? Post your matchups in the comment section below!