Benson Henderson made waves in the WEC when he captured their lightweight title. All signs were pointing to him becoming the next great lightweight. Then he suffered a defeat at the hands of Anthony Pettis at WEC 53 and some in the MMA community thought that Henderson had reached his potential and just wouldn’t attain greatness in the UFC.
Joke was on them as Henderson reeled off some truly impressive wins in the octagon before getting a shot at Frankie Edgar’s lightweight title. His victories over Jim Miller and Clay Guida were some of the best scraps of 2011 and truly showed that he was the number one contender.
He faced Frankie Edgar at UFC 144 in Japan earlier this year and took a unanimous decision over the former champ. It was a decision that firmly cemented Henderson at the top of the lightweight mountain. But it wasn’t always like that for him.
“I didn’t know that I would be the UFC champion. Did I intend on being the UFC champ? Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t exactly see myself doing this as a full time job or career but I certainly intended for it when I started down this path.”
Henderson not only trains at the MMA Lab, he also is a part owner. He’s one of the few fighters that truly doesn’t allow himself to get distracted with the party lifestyle that so many have fallen victim to in the past. In fact, he’s one of the most notorious gym rats in the entire sport.
He doesn’t just show up to the gym when he has a fight. He is in there every single day working to improve himself and all aspects of his game. This also allows him to stay within the boundaries of fight shape which so many others lose in-between bookings.
“I’m always in the gym, six hours a day. I’m in the gym all the time, six days a week. It’s one of the reason why my training camps are a little bit shorter. My training camp is five weeks long because I only need four weeks to get into fighting shape,” Henderson told Bleacher Report. “A lot of guys need to get back in shape, I’m in the gym all the time so I don’t really lose my conditioning as much as other people.”
His fight with Edgar is a rematch from an absolute classic at UFC 144. Henderson came out victorious and captured the UFC lightweight title in the process. After spending so much time in the cage with Edgar, it’s apparent that they know a lot about each other’s nuances. But Henderson isn’t anticipating the same fight.
“Obviously it was a little bit different preparing for this fight. Pretty much every fight is the same. It’s a fight so you just have to go in there and be prepared and have fun,” Henderson said. “Having spent 25 minutes with him already, he’s going to know some of my dance steps and I’m going to know some of his. So it’s about who got better at what they do and who improved those dance steps.”
The UFC 144 bout saw Henderson have a bit of a hometown advantage with much of his mother’s side of the family in attendance. Henderson anticipates that he’ll have a similar showing against Edgar in Denver. After all, he is a Colorado native and cut his teeth in the Denver MMA scene.
“I never really thought about that. I was born in Colorado Springs and I spent a lot of time there. I moved to Denver when I first started training in MMA full time. So I have a lot of roots up there in the MMA community. I also have buddies from college up there so yeah I’ll feel just fine in Denver.”
Benson Henderson looks to defend his UFC lightweight title against Frankie Edgar at UFC 150 tonight on Pay Per View.
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