Oklahoma City’s UFC Fight Night 112 will have a special taste for former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks.

Hendricks (18-6 MMA, 13-6 UFC), who attended college at Oklahoma State and grew up in nearby Edmond, hasn’t competed in the state since 2007. Which is why, with the exception of his three UFC title fights, the June 25 scrap with Tim Boetsch (20-11 MMA, 11-10 UFC) is the one he’s looked forward to the most.

Other than the home appeal, Hendricks also sees the matchup as the perfect opportunity to prove some doubters wrong.

“I am looking forward to this one,” Hendricks said in the first of a weekly series of MMAjunkie Radio interviews leading up to the scrap at Chesapeake Energy Arena. “I already hear what everybody’s saying, how (Tim Boetsch) is bigger than me, so he’s got tot be stronger than me. And, you know what, I’m quicker than those guys. And I’m actually trained for this fight.

“And I’m so excited to see what I can do with a guy who used to fight at 205. If I go out there, and I can manhandle a guy who used to fight at 205, what does that mean? That I can move up to 205, then?”

The last sentence, however, was followed by a loud laugh from the ex-champ, who went on to clarify it was a joke.

“I would have to be absolutely nuts to say I can compete at 205,” Hendricks said.

That is certainly a wise statement, considering the ex-welterweight has only begun his 185-pound path. After repeated failures to meet his previous division’s limit, Hendricks showed in February that he can hang out among his overall larger colleagues, walking out of his UFC Fight Night 105 appointment with a unanimous decision over Hector Lombard

On his end, Hendricks seems quite pleased with a move that, physically and mentally, put him “back in the game.”

“I can train hard again,” Hendricks said. “I can be excited about going in there and doing things. This last fight, it was so weird, because I got to actually see punches coming at me again. Instead of just standing there, your coach yells something at you, you want to pull the trigger but body is saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ That’s what I’ve been fighting for a while now.

“I was actually able to be a complete fighter again. More than anything, not cutting to 170, I think I was pulling too much water out of my whole body. I know that for a fact, because whenever your kidney shuts down, that’s a result of that. Second is that, whenever a punch is coming at you, you’ve got to have fluid in your brain to be able to take a punch, to recognize that you’re in the game.”

The win over Lombard snapped a tough three-fight skid for the former champ, who dropped decision losses to Kelvin Gastelum and Neil Magny – both of which he failed to make weight for – following a TKO loss to two-time title challenger Stephen Thompson.

Now, looking to go 2-0 as a UFC middleweight against the taller, rangier Boetsch, Hendricks is not too intimidated by an opponent who he sees can loosely compare to a “slower” version of Lombard.

“He’s going to throw a couple of leg kicks, and they’re not going to be something he wants kill you with,” Hendricks said. “But he wants to set up his hands. Knowing that, but he’s going to be a guy who’s just going to try to bully me. That’s sort of the way I went into the Hector Lombard fight. It’s that there’s a guy who’s going to want to try to pressure forward. He has knockout power, but he’s going to try to push forward, push his pace.

“And if you can knock him off their pace, then everything starts landing in your favor. And that’s sort of what I have to do with Tim. I have to go out there, I have to not let him think he’s being the dominant fighter.”