Heath Herring, master thespian

Let me ask – does anybody miss the Texas Crazy Horse? Heath Herring hasn’t fought since he pushed Brock Lesnar to the scorecards at UFC 87 over a year ago. He was supposed to face Cain Velasquez at UFC 99 but had to withdraw because of illness.

Now, a new interview over on MMA Fanhouse indicates he’s not really interested in returning to the cage. Seems he’s happy being an actor:

“It’s not that I’m not really happy with the UFC … It’s just, you know, like I said, I think that last fight just took a lot out of me. Now with acting, and things kind of taking off, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. And not necessarily with the UFC. Just with the training … you know, some of my trainers and things like that. I think I just needed a little time to step back and maybe do some other things for a little bit…”

That’s right. Herring is an actor. Or at least he wants to be an actor. I wouldn’t call anything he’s done so far acting.

Herring did have a small role as an underground MMA fighter in the worse-than-straight-to-DVD Never Surrender, which also featured Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in less-than-illustrious roles. And that same crew also appear in something called Hell’s Chain, another MMA-set actioner from the same writer-director-star, Hector Echavarria. (I haven’t seen it and probably never will.) Herring plays somebody called Demoledoe in King of the Cage and also has a role as a henchman in Salt, which is actually a big-budget Hollywood thriller starring Angelina Jolie.

“I’ve been trying to get into acting a little bit; it’s actually been taking off. I’ve got a bunch of different movies lined up. Don’t have anything signed just yet, but you know, the film industry is kind of like the fight industry, there’s always rumors, but things always seem to fall in place afterwards.”

And while Herring still has three fights on his UFC contract, fighting isn’t his priority:

“You know, I don’t have anything scheduled right now with the UFC. Like I said, this acting stuff is kind of taking off, I’ve got some other things going on. I’m really not in a big hurry to jump back in there right now. I’m kind of riding this wave and seeing where it’s going to take me.”