This Month’s MMA Birthdays: Johny Hendricks Turns 40

Brian KnappSep 05, 2023

His stay at the top may have been brief, but Johny Hendricks certainly made his mark in mixed martial arts. The former Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight titleholder will celebrate his 40th birthday on Sept. 12.

Hendricks was a four-time NCAA All-American wrestler at Oklahoma State University, where he won back-to-back national championships (2005-06) for the tradition-rich Cowboys. The Ada, Oklahoma, native made his professional MMA debut in September 2007 and proceeded to rattle off 15 wins in 16 appearances before a contentious split decision defeat to Georges St. Pierre cost him in his first pass at UFC gold. After St. Pierre stepped aside as champion to go on a sabbatical, Hendricks captured the vacant welterweight crown with a memorable five-round unanimous decision over Robbie Lawler in the UFC 171 main event on Nov. 16, 2013. His reign lasted just 266 days. A little less than nine months later, Hendricks relinquished the title in his rematch with Lawler at UFC 181. “Bigg Rigg” won just two of his final seven bouts before retiring in 2018.

Others in MMA celebrating a birthday during the month of September:

SEPT. 1

Raphael Davis, 47
Timothy Woods, 47
Tim Kennedy, 44
Mike Pierce, 43
Nick Catone, 42
Mikhail Malyutin, 42
D.J. Linderman, 40
Henrique da Silva, 34
Carl Seumanutafa, 34
Fatkhidin Sobirov, 30

SEPT. 2

Steve Gable, 47
Jeff Curran, 46
Shamil Abdurakhimov, 42
Alessio Sakara, 42
Jake Rosholt, 41
Sean O'Connell, 40
Anthony Durnell, 39
Enrique Marin, 37
Cathal Pendred, 36
Alejandro Perez, 34

SEPT. 3

Hidehiko Yoshida, 54
Leo Sylvest, 50
Alexandru Lungu, 39
Brian Cobb, 43
Rene Nazare, 41
Ousmane Thomas Diagne, 40
Daniel Jolly, 39
Dominick Cruz, 38
Robert Morrow, 38
Lorenz Larkin, 37

SEPT. 4

Jason David Frank, 1973-2022
Bao Quach, 44
Katy Collins, 36
Isabela de Padua, 32
Kevin Lee, 31
Humberto Bandenay, 29
Kyra Batara, 29
Stanislav Nanaev, 29
Nicolae Negumereanu, 29
Youssef Zalal, 27

SEPT. 5

Emmanuel Yarborough, 1960-2015
Tim Hague, 1983-2017
James Brasco, 51
Rob MacDonald, 45
Gray Maynard, 44
Jacob Volkmann, 43
Francis Ngannou, 37
Raquel Pennington, 35
Genah Fabian, 34
Antun Racic, 33

SEPT. 6

Antonio Graceffo, 56
Masatoshi Abe, 47
Thales Leites, 42
Claudio Silva, 41
Callan Potter, 39
Lynn Alvarez, 38
Handerson Martins, 38
Tarec Saffiedine, 37
Jared Gordon, 34
Michael Stack, 29

SEPT. 7

Patrick Williams, 42
Alan Carlos, 40
Ian Loveland, 40
Pedro Munhoz, 37
Yancy Medeiros, 39
Kevin Aguilar, 35
Joey Elzea, 34
Reinier de Ridder, 33
Artem Frolov, 32
Larissa Pacheco, 29

SEPT. 8

John Halverson, 51
Rubens Xavier, 49
Mike Thomas Brown, 48
Chris Tuchscherer, 48
Yasuhiro Urushitani, 47
Kurt Holobaugh, 37
Christian Morecraft, 37
Chris Dempsey, 36
Maryna Moroz, 32
Logan Storley, 31

SEPT. 9

Don Richards, 49
Ailton Barbosa, 47
Roger Narvaez, 40
Harris Sarmiento, 40
Jose Aldo, 37
Bobby Green, 37
Kyung Ho Kang, 36
Dong Hyun Ma, 35
Kristina Williams, 34
Yaroslav Amosov, 30

SEPT. 10

Masahiko Kimura, 1917-1993
Sanae Kikuta, 52
Roman Zentsov, 50
Mirko Filipovic, 49
Naoya Uematsu, 45
Cully Butterfield, 34
Mark Martin, 30
Rhys McKee, 28
Jack Della Maddalena, 27
Jakub Wiklacz, 27

SEPT. 11

Dennis Reed, 56
Chance Farrar, 48
Johnny Sampaio, 48
Andre Winner, 42
Eric Bedard, 39
Cody Gibson, 36
Te Edwards, 33
Allan Nascimento, 32
Robert Hale, 31
Jia Wen Ma, 27

SEPT. 12

Yuki Sasaki, 47
James Irvin, 45
Ray Steinbeiss, 44
Stanislav Nedkov, 42
Mario Rinaldi, 41
Johny Hendricks, 40
Junior dos Santos, 39
Paul Kelly, 39
Rani Yahya, 39
Garry Tonon, 32

SEPT. 13

Yuri Vaulin, 60
Igor Almeida, 44
Marcus Sursa, 41
Ronald LeBreton Jr., 38
Andy Uhrich, 38
Juan Archuleta, 36
Zach Fears, 35
Tommy Espinosa, 31
Elias Garcia, 31
Chase Hooper, 24

SEPT. 14

Antonio Silva, 44
Chris Lozano, 41
Adrian Miles, 40
Dwight Grant, 39
Alexey Stoyan, 39
Mauro Chaulet, 35
Alan Omer, 35
Yuki Motoya, 34
Jose Alday, 32
Gaston Bolanos, 31

SEPT. 15

John Marsh, 53
Rick Hawn, 47
Fernando Gonzalez, 40
Kaitlin Young, 38
Jesse Gross, 36
Mike Wilkinson, 36
Horacio Gutierrez, 33
Mike Perry, 32
Marcelo Golm, 31
Terrance McKinney, 29

SEPT. 16

Roberto Traven, 55
Nobutatsu Suzuki, 46
Pablo Garza, 40
Brandon Halsey, 37
Lucas Montoya, 37
Darius Estell, 35
Ariel Beck, 33
Luis Vargas, 32
Jeremy Kennedy, 31
Wei Xie, 27

SEPT. 17

Michael Guymon, 49
Denis Kang, 46
Scott Jorgensen, 41
Hisaki Kato, 41
Sultan Aliev, 39
Sean Holden, 39
Hector Urbina, 36
Loik Radzhabov, 33
Reece McLaren, 32
Tyson Pedro, 32

SEPT. 18

Yuji Hisamatsu, 52
Ryuta Sakurai, 52
Mike Pyle, 48
Abel Trujillo, 40
Felice Herrig, 39
Ashkan Mokhtarian, 38
Tyra Parker, 34
Aren Akopyan, 30
Aleksander Podmarev, 29
Tiani Valle, 29

SEPT. 19

Yoshihiro Takayama, 57
Mark Weir, 56
Heather Clark, 43
Jeremy Jackson, 41
Leandro Issa, 40
Matt Wiman, 40
Lewis Gonzalez, 36
Volkan Oezdemir, 34
Sinjen Smith, 31
Claire Guthrie, 28

SEPT. 20

Ryan Jensen, 46
Alex Karalexis, 46
Eric Schafer, 46
Quinn Mulhern, 39
Sarah Kaufman, 38
Khabib Nurmagomedov, 35
Aalon Cruz, 34
George Garcia, 33
Marvin Vettori, 30
Riku Yoshida, 23

SEPT. 21

Ronald Jhun, 53
Mario Miranda, 45
Josh Thomson, 45
Gael Grimaud, 44
Bianca Daimoni, 37
Andrei Koshkin, 33
Martin Bravo, 30
Bryan Battle, 29
Ty Gwerder, 29
Junior Tafa, 27

SEPT. 22

Bob Sapp, 50
Forrest Petz, 48
Takanori Gomi, 45
Fredy Serrano, 44
Shamar Bailey, 41
Bruno Menezes, 38
Chuck O'Neil, 38
Mike de la Torre, 37
Elias Silverio, 37
Corey Anderson, 34

SEPT. 23

Shane del Rosario, 1983-2013
Eugene Jackson, 57
Jason Lambert, 46
Makoto Maeda, 46
Maro Perak, 41
Joe Riggs, 41
Mark O. Madsen, 49
Kyle Driscoll, 40
Aaron Pico, 27
Imran Zhulagov, 26

SEPT. 24

Cristian Binda, 46
Brad Pickett, 45
Sara McMann, 43
Brian Stann, 43
Kris McCray, 42
Roxanne Modafferi, 41
Jose Andres Cortes, 39
Dan Charles, 38
Adam McDonough, 38
Chris Horodecki, 36

SEPT. 25

Todd Gouwenberg, 49
Olavo Belo, 44
Rashad Evans, 44
Allan Weickert, 42
Phil Davis, 39
Jake O'Brien, 39
Chris Daukaus, 34
Rodolfo Vieira, 34
Jessica Andrade, 32
Aleksa Camur, 28

SEPT. 26

Shinobu Aoyama, 50
David Branch, 42
Roger Gracie, 42
Hugo Viana, 41
Martin Zawada, 40
John Dodson, 39
Ross Pearson, 39
Santiago Ponzinibbio, 37
Dileno Lopes, 36
Tom Breese, 32

SEPT. 27

Shannon Ritch, 53
Thiago Jambo Goncalves, 43
Karol Bedorf, 40
Sasa Mitrovic, 38
Josh Bacallao, 35
Herman Terrado, 34
Zebaztian Kadestam, 33
Islam Makhachev, 32
Karl Albrektsson, 30
Max Rohskopf, 29

SEPT. 28

Mario Sperry, 57
Fedor Emelianenko, 47
Din Thomas, 47
Jeremy Mahon, 44
Eduardo Felipe, 43
Sam Morgan, 42
Justin Ledet, 35
Anthony Gutierrez, 32
Tony Gravely, 32
Janay Harding, 29

SEPT. 29

Jason Riley, 43
James Te Huna, 42
Andre Galvao, 41
Che Mills, 41
Eric Spicely, 37
Alexander Volkanovski, 35
Evgeny Bondar, 34
Niko Price, 34
Collin Huckbody, 29
Joselyne Edwards, 28

SEPT. 30

Herb Dean, 53
Yves Edwards, 47
Latoya Walker, 44
Damacio Page, 41
Scott Holtzman, 40
Neal Ewing, 38
Chris Wade, 36
Natan Levy, 32
Brad Riddell, 32
Diego Silva, 30