SAO PAULO — Former UFC lightweight champion Ben Henderson came up short on his run at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) in Sao Paulo, tapping to Abdukadirov Magomed due to a rear-naked choke in his first match of the day Saturday.
Henderson is unhappy with his performance.
“I think it was not a very good performance at all. It was a downright terrible performance,” Henderson told MMAFighting.com after the match. “I’m not used to having those type of terrible performances when I compete, I have better performances.”
“Smooth” never heard of Magomed before the match, but doesn’t believe it was a huge factor in the result.
“First time I heard about him,” he said. “Mostly it doesn’t matter. You have to be very aware if your opponent has a really good flying armbar or a really, really good ankle lock or heel hook. But most of it is what you do and how you approach the game.”
Ben Henderson taps #ADCC2015 pic.twitter.com/fdhcn377kz
— Guilherme Cruz (@guicruzzz) 29 agosto 2015
Scheduled to face Thiago Alves on Nov. 28 in the UFC’s first trip to South Korea, Henderson wants to put on a better performance before he leaves Brazil.
“I think today was a terrible performance, and I think I need to do something to redeem myself,” said the UFC fighter. “I don’t like waiting two more years for ADCC in 2017, so I’m gonna try the absolute, even though those boys are pretty big, pretty strong and pretty good too, but I gotta try the absolute to hopefully make up for such a terrible performance on my weight class.”
Henderson will talk to his coach before signing up for the openweight category on Sunday, but plans to convince him to do it.
“I’m gonna talk to my coach on the phone tonight, and my wife,” he said. “I have a fight coming up so you don’t want to get injured. But I would like to, absolutely.”