On Saturday, at UFC 204, the 46-year-old Dan Henderson will try to fill the only hole in his formidable MMA resume: UFC champion.
Despite losing three of his last five fights, Henderson finds himself with one last shot at championship gold, mostly on the strength of his name and his yearslong feud with new middleweight kingpin Michael Bisping.
Henderson clearly belongs in any Hall of Fame. His list of opponents reads like an MMA who’s who, and he vanquished many of them, often in spectacular fashion. But where does he rank among the best of the best?
Is he a fringe figure destined to be forgotten with time, or is his a face you might consider carving on the Mount Rushmore of MMA’s formative years? Two of Bleacher Report’s longest-tenured MMA writers, former ESPN scribe Josh Gross and The MMA Encyclopedia author Jonathan Snowden have different takes on the subject and were more than happy to discuss it at length.
Jonathan: Dan Henderson irks me. Every time the old man fights, a flock of think pieces deluge the internet, most of them singing his praises. They claim he’s emblematic of the “right way” of doing things and even that he deserves a place on MMA’s Mount Rushmore beside the best to ever lace up the gloves.
Hogwash, I say.
As a longtime fan and professional historian, I find such claims preposterous. But as they are repeated, year after year and fight after fight, the pushback against Henderson Mania becomes more and more difficult.
In my mind, Henderson symbolizes everything that’s wrong with mixed martial arts. From his early days as the beneficiary of some truly preposterous decisions and his pioneering choice to use exogenous testosterone to power his aging body to his complete disregard for the well-being of his opponents in the cage, Henderson has been bad for the sport for a decade. But over and over again, he gets a pass for each and every indiscretion.
Reasonable people can disagree, and plenty of folks I respect are proud, boisterous Henderson supporters. Josh, who has covered Henderson for much of his career, heads that list. So how about it, Mr. Gross—what is it about Henderson you find so compelling and admirable?
Josh: I’m glad to answer your question, Jonathan.
Henderson is a hell of a fighter, one of the best Americans ever to step into a cage over the last 20 years. Call him Decision Dan or Hollywood or Hendo—whichever way you slice it, there aren’t many fighters who possess the body of work that he does.
I say this fully aware of a few things:
1. Henderson spent a career that began in 1997 fighting in the wild west of sports. Performance-enhancing drugs were rife. Basically everyone dabbled in one way or another. Henderson, through it all, has never once tested positive in the way so many of his colleagues did.
2. Henderson fought for several years under a therapeutic-use exemption for TRT. Criticize him for this all you like. TRT was sordid and a black mark against anyone associated with it, including the UFC and state athletic commissions that at best didn’t seem to care and at worst turned a blind eye.
Context matters, though.
If, like Jonathan, you hold TRT against Henderson, it behooves you. You should recognize that Henderson’s TRT use was not the same as Chael Sonnen’s TRT use or Vitor Belfort’s TRT use.
Unlike Sonnen or Belfort, Henderson sought and received use exemptions from athletic commissions from the very beginning. He did not hide a thing from regulators. Unlike Sonnen or Belfort, Henderson has not tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. He did not attempt to take advantage of the system.
Jonathan: It’s easy to excuse Henderson’s TRT use. But a closer look kind of shoots holes in the idea that he operated admirably. At best you can credit him with being at the forefront of the doping movement, of successfully playing all the angles. There is something quite American about that.
You’re right that Henderson never tested positive for PEDs prior to his request for a chemical boost. How could he have? He never once fought a bout in which he was subject to drug testing of any kind until he was already the proud holder of a TRT hall pass.
His first 25 fights were all contested in the wild and woolly world of prehistoric MMA. Years after fighters in the UFC were subject to athletic commission testing, Henderson was in Japan, operating under a contract that expressly allowed for doping.
That’s notable but not exclusive to Dan. I’m OK with saying Henderson was a product of his time. But I don’t think he holds any moral high ground—especially considering a professional athlete, by almost all accounts, doesn’t require testosterone replacement without having dabbled extensively in anabolic steroids.
If you’re willing to put that aside, I am too. The sport was and is rife with PED use. Let’s assume usage by both Henderson and his historical peers—I still believe he falls short of true excellence.
In his 19 years in the sport, I don’t believe Henderson has spent a single day as the best fighter in MMA. More than that, I don’t think he has spent a single second as the best fighter in any particular weight class. Henderson was a great fighter, but he doesn’t belong in the conversation with the true immortals. And I think his record shows that.
Josh: Well, Henderson doesn’t deserve a pass for his TRT use. I’m just of the opinion that it wasn’t egregious like notorious users. I mean, TRT use is TRT use any way you look at it, but elevated-over-the-limit TRT use is bordering on criminal. The fact is Henderson never went there so far as we know.
I’m certainly on board with you regarding the reality of lax anti-doping standards in Japan for many years. But Mark Kerr wasn’t just juicing in Pride. Right or wrong, every fighter who competed in that era will be tainted as a likely user for the simple fact that despite woefully inadequate testing, many fighters were still caught, including more than a few of Henderson’s Pride compatriots.
But not Henderson, so there’s that.
As for what Henderson did in competition, well, it was impressive as far as I’m concerned. To me, this is hard to argue the other way. He won all manner of MMA fights, from Vale Tudo style in Brazil and highly stylized bouts in RINGs to rough, single-night UFC tournaments, the wild showcases in Pride and to homogenized Unified Rules contests we see in the Octagon today.
And then there is the way he went about it, morphing from a strong wrestler reliant on control to a gunslinger with a reputation for delivering an H Bomb. Just look at the win against Hector Lombard. I mean, who does that sort of stuff?
Henderson’s record is littered with famous names. He fought all comers in three weight classes. He won way more than he lost, and like many legends, he fell a lot. Taken together, Henderson’s resume is one of a great fighter worth remembering when he finally decides enough is enough.
I don’t know whether Henderson was ever the best fighter in the sport at any particular time, but he certainly ranked alongside the best for long stretches, especially among American competitors. His longevity matters. Whether he was 26 or 46, almost every time Henderson stepped in a ring or cage to fight, there was no doubt that the man standing in the other corner had an extremely difficult challenge in front of him.
So if Hendo doesn’t meet your standards, which fighters over the last 20 years have done it so much better as to qualify as immortal?
Jonathan: The debate about Henderson’s relative merits as a fighter should feel familiar to longtime sports fans, even if they are new to MMA. There’s frequently a divide between those who value short bursts of excellence and observers who prefer consistent performance, even if that performance never reaches such lofty heights.
As a full-time fighter in actual MMA bouts, Henderson has never once won more than four fights in a row. He was certainly consistent—consistently up and down, unable to put together the kind of run that truly defines an athlete built for immortality.
Some of that is a product of his opposition. Lord knows you can’t deny Henderson’s courage and willingness to engage the best fighters of multiple eras. He fought 24 opponents who once carried championship gold for Pride, Strikeforce, Bellator or UFC. That’s amazing.
Here’s the thing, though—he fell short against that top opposition time and time again. Against those top foes, he went just 13-11. That’s the difference between Henderson and someone such as Jon Jones, Fedor Emelianenko or Anderson Silva, fighters who more often than not rose to the occasion.
Even Henderson’s most notable achievement, holding two Pride title belts at the same time, feels hollow. He lost his last fight at 185 pounds before jumping to UFC.
Nothing about Dan Henderson is exactly as it seems.
These kinds of conversations tend to devolve and lose complexity. No doubt by this point, I’ve been cast as a Henderson hater. But that’s not quite right. I recognize his achievements and that he’s a fighter many hold close to their hearts. I think the discussion is more about where he ranks among the best of the best. It’s only against this high standard that Henderson fails to measure up.
On Saturday, he will once again have a chance to win an elusive UFC championship. He didn’t exactly earn this opportunity, but when the cage door closes, that won’t matter one bit. Final word to you, Josh—will Henderson win? And if he does, will it change his legacy in any significant way? When he walks away one last time, what will you remember about one of the few fighters standing who predates you in this sport?
Josh: Randy Couture never won more than four fights in a row, either, by the way. MMA is a wild sport because some of the best—to Jonathan’s point, perceived best—sometimes carry a bunch of losses, particularly if they competed in earlier eras of the sport and kept working past their expiration date.
Couture walked away with a 19-11 record, and perhaps 20 years from now, people will wonder what the big deal was about him or Henderson (32-14) or BJ Penn (16-10-2) or Chuck Liddell (21-8) or Kerr (15-11). Well, they were incredibly important in their day, and we shouldn’t dismiss that because of the parity of cage fighting.
Some mixed martial artists deserve to be considered special, even if they’re blemished in or out of the Octagon. Henderson is in that class.
So will he grab the only thing that’s eluded him thus far, a UFC belt? He was so close against Quinton Jackson in 2007—and not so close against Anderson Silva one bout later. Nine years later, at the age of 46, he’s set to try again. As undeserving as he may be, according to a variety of metrics, the reality is Hendo’s right where he’s always been: toiling away with a huge competitive prize in front of him.
The last time we saw him against Bisping, in 2009, Henderson, aided by TRT, produced perhaps the most iconic knockout of his career. Age and the fight game have since taken their toll. He’s slow. His back is a mess. He can barely work through a proper training camp. Yet he shows up and somehow manages to win, even when no one thinks he will.
I’ve picked against him in recent fights, and I’m doing it again. I favor Bisping to retain the title in Manchester, England. But if anyone is prone to playing spoiler, it’s Hendo. A win or a loss here won’t do much for the wrestler’s legacy. Some people may view a shocking UFC title win as the capper to his career. I’d see it as another day in Hendo’s life.
As for lasting memories, it’s pretty easy. Henderson never avoided anyone and went to war whenever it was called for. Also, his dentures. It’s hard to forget those.
Jonathan Snowden and Josh Gross cover combat sports for Bleacher Report. Gross is the author of Ali vs. Inoki, and Snowden has written three books about the martial arts, most recently Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling.
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