Tag: benson henderson

Benson Henderson is ready to face the best the world has to offer, but he’ll be doing it in a different weight class for the foreseeable future.

After successfully rolling the dice in a higher weight class against dangerous striker Brandon Thatch back in February, the former lightweight champion has decided to vacate his place as a major player in the 155-pound collective and join the ranks of the talent-stacked welterweight division. With his long-held perennial contender status in the lightweight fold going strong, Henderson’s decision to commit himself to a new division came as a surprise to some in the MMA community.

“Fighting at welterweight is the plan now and we are working on building my body for 170 pounds the right way,” Henderson told Bleacher Report. “I want to be as explosive as possible, but not gain too much size. We want to pretty much stay the size we are now, but want to be stronger and have the weight cut be more manageable and not be a soul-crushing experience.

“The size difference is definitely something I’m going to have to adjust to,” he continued. “I spar with different sized guys all the time, but it’s another thing to go out there in a live fight. It was good to go in there and experience that against Thatch, and to come out with that experience being a positive one. It definitely opened the doors up to this decision. We wanted to test the waters and it was a short notice fight at elevation. That’s probably the most undersold or least talked-about element of that fight is it was not only a short notice fight, but that it came at elevation in Denver.”

Yet, Smooth is a fighter who is always looking for new ways to challenge and motivate himself, and the MMA Lab representative is fired up about moving up and trying to reach the top of the mountain in the 170-pound ranks. It’s an ambitious undertaking for Henderson, but facing the toughest tests available has been a hallmark of his time competing at the highest level of the sport. 

For Henderson, the fight game is not about finding some form of mythical traction, because the safest move would have been to remain in the lightweight division or drop down a class like so many other fighters before him have done.

“I’ve never been the type of individual to run with the crowd,” Henderson said. “If everyone is doing something I’m not going to be the guy who also does it just because. I like the idea of going up in weight because there are so many great tests for me there. The idea of going down in weight never appealed to me because the idea of fighting smaller guys does nothing for me. Why not truly test yourself and move up to face competition that are bigger and stronger than you are?

“Those are the fights that interest me because I love testing myself as a mixed martial artist and pushing my boundaries. A lot of guys in this sport say they’ll fight anyone, anywhere at any time, but when the UFC calls they have a reason why they can’t take the fight. I’ve been saying I’ll fight whoever for a long time and I back it up.”

Instead of traveling the path of least resistance, Henderson is looking for the spark that comes with facing uncertainty inside the Octagon. He believes competing in the deep waters of the welterweight division will bring out his best, as it will put his confidence and skills to the maximum test each and every time he enters the cage.

Furthermore, Henderson is looking to turn the best he has to offer into becoming a two-divisional champion under the UFC banner, and it’s a road he’s excited to travel down.

“I just want the quickest route to a title,” Henderson said. “I don’t care if that’s at 155 or 170; I just want to get to the title. But I look at everyone on the lightweight roster and I’m confident I can go five rounds with and beat anybody in the division. [Rafael] dos Anjos? We can do it tonight and I’ll get my hand raised. Anthony Pettis? I’ll go five rounds with him tonight and get my hand raised. I feel very confident that I can beat everybody and anybody at lightweight, but it isn’t quite the same thing at 170. 

“It’s all about getting to the title in the quickest route possible. We looked at things and think it’s a quicker path for me at 170 because dos Anjos is currently holding the title. Even though he beat me due to an early stoppage in my opinion, the UFC made it clear I was going to have to take a lot of steps before I got another title shot at 155. We’re hoping to make a big splash at welterweight and get a big-name draw right out of the gates.”

Henderson’s high-profile status in the lightweight ranks is precisely the caliber of recognition that would appeal to a hungry contender on the rise, but that hasn’t exactly been the case as of late.

The Arizona-based fighter’s versatile, cardio-driven attack has proven to be a difficult matchup for anyone who tangles with him inside the cage, and the type of fight he brings apparently isn’t necessarily welcoming in an environment where winning dictates value, and in some cases continued employment with the UFC.

When those circumstances are added to a recent loss to the fighter who would go on to become the 155-pound champion, Rafael dos Anjos, it creates a scenario where Henderson would have to travel an extended path to reach another championship opportunity. And that’s not something he’s interested in.

The 31-year-old cardio machine is hungry to get back into a heated title race and sees the welterweight division as the best place for him to put his bid in. By doing so, Henderson knows he’s once again jumping into a high-stakes situation, but those are the exact conditions he’s looking for. Henderson wants each test to mean more than the last, and he’s confident he’ll be able to truly test his skills against the larger competition that’s waiting for him in the 170-pound division.

“There aren’t a lot of guys at lightweight who wanted to fight me, but we are hoping one of the bigger names at 170 will be up for it,” Henderson said. “I’m hoping they look at me and take the matchup because they’ll be bigger and stronger and think they can beat me up. And since I have a decent name and it would be an easy fight for them they would jump at the chance to fight me.

“On my side of things, getting my hand raised against a guy who is top-ranked in the welterweight division would put me right up near the top where I want to be, but things haven’t really worked out that way so far. There haven’t been any takers at 170 who want to dance, either.

“I’m a tough matchup for anyone,” he added. “If you are a hardcore takedown specialist who needs to get me to the ground to win the fight you’re going to have a really hard time doing that. If you are a stand-up guy I’m willing to fight you there as well. In my last fight with Donald Cerrone, even though he got his hand raised in an interesting decision, I went toe-to-toe with him for the entire fight. I’m stylistically a tough matchup for a lot of people, and I don’t see that changing at welterweight.”

 

Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The once and future king.

That is a mantra that represents the mindset of former WEC and UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson. Those who follow “Smooth” on social media platforms are used to seeing it in hashtag form, but to the man himself, those words set forth a goal he’s determined to accomplish. In Henderson’s mind, he was a champion before and will be a champion again, and the road traveled to make that goal a reality is a journey of progress.

That said, to those looking at Henderson from an outside perspective it appeared that his decision to take the road less traveled could be a perilous one for his career. The former 155-pound strap holder was coming off back-to-back losses when he decided to take a short notice fight up a weight class against Brandon Thatch—a fighter who had looked to be nothing short of a wrecking machine in his two previous showings inside the Octagon.

Suddenly, where Henderson had always lingered within striking distance of getting another shot at the lightweight title, he was now rolling the dice into much more dangerous waters as he prepared to put his elite-level status at stake in a division he had never competed in before. The lead-up to the main event at Fight Night 60 sparked numerous debates across the MMA landscape, and when Henderson and Thatch squared off for the pre-fight faceoff, the size difference between the two men became shockingly clear.

Henderson knew he was going to have his hands full with the surging striker, but he was also supremely confident in what he was going to bring to the Octagon in Denver. A long and successful career had taught Henderson that if he gave everything he had inside the cage, the results he sought were going to produce themselves.

And he was absolutely right.

Despite a close first round and a second stanza where he looked to be hurt and fading, Henderson dug deep and surged back with force. He turned the tides of the bout by taking the action to the canvas in the third, then repeated those efforts in the fourth round until sealing the deal with a fight-ending rear-naked choke.

It was an impressive performance by all measurable standards, and Henderson became the man of the hour in the sport he loves because of it.

“Being a veteran going into the fight with Brandon Thatch helped me a lot,” Henderson told Bleacher Report. “It also helps a lot after getting this win—a big time some are saying—where you get all the accolades, compliments and congratulations. I’ve been there before. I’ve been in this position before. I also know how it feels when you lose and everyone doubts you. It’s one of those things you have to take in stride. If you live for people’s acceptance you’re going to die from their rejection.”

“I definitely appreciate the love, and I like it a lot, but it’s nothing I need. You hope to get that kind of reaction every time you step in and compete. Every time I step into the Octagon I give everything I have to give in there. I don’t hold anything back. Sometimes it works my way and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t go your way and you don’t have a stellar performance, you get the opposite reception.”

“It is what it is and it is fine, but I”m not going nuts with it,” he added. “I’ve had it before when I first won the belt, and I like it, but this is not my first rodeo so to speak.”

He was facing tough circumstances before the fight got underway, but in the aftermath of his victory Henderson suddenly had plenty of options ahead of him and new roads to travel. The 31-year-old Glendale-based fighter is a man who puts personal progress above all else, and the current landscapes of the lightweight and welterweight divisions hold plenty of potential fights and exciting challenges for him to take on.

On the flip side of things, such a drastic turnaround of public perception hasn’t gone unnoticed by Henderson by any means. The momentum and recognition he’s picked up after defeating Thatch are the fruits of the labor from a calculated risk validated by victory, and the reward he found was options.

Where Henderson was previously locked in the ebb and flow of a lightweight division that has struggled to keep moving over the past two years, he can now don his welterweight hat to keep his quest for progression rolling onward if he so chooses.

“It’s nice to have a lot of options ahead of me,” Henderson said. “It’s nice to get the recognition you think you deserve. I had two losses in a row coming into this last fight. The stoppage against [Rafael] dos Anjos, the referee stepped in and timing-wise it is what it is. The decision loss to Cowboy Cerrone where the judges saw it a different way. Both of those fights are losses on my record. I don’t know if anyone was doubting that I was still pretty good or was still a legitimate, viable threat at 155, but yes, I’m just as legitimate and viable a threat at lightweight as ever. And now at 170 as well.”

“We live in such a ‘What have you done for me lately?’ kind of world that people just tend to forget what you’ve done before. People are like, ‘This guy isn’t very good,’ then when you get a big win they turn that stance around and say, ‘He’s a pretty darn good fighter.’ I have those two losses and they are what they are, but I’m as tough a matchup as there is for anyone at 155. But it is nice to have your name thrown out there a little bit more and get the love and appreciation.”

“This was a good move for me and I definitely think I can grow from this,” he added in regard to his options going forward. “For me to go up to 170, take a fight on short notice against a good opponent and do it at elevation was a big challenge. Especially when you factor in the elevation because that was the biggest thing for me. I don’t think people understand how hard it is to fight at elevation. How much more tired you get. That was just a big pain in the butt for me there and I was happy to have a good performance at elevation.”

And said performance was a resounding sign that whatever propelled Henderson to the top of arguably the deepest collection of talent under the UFC roster is something he very much still has. Henderson outworked and out-paced a much larger fighter and kept himself out of harm’s way while employing his game plan. Granted, there were times when the size and weight differences were crystal clear, but those elements simply became details once Henderson found his groove.

Dabbling in the waters of the welterweight division was something Henderson and his coach John Crouch had talked about for years, and when it was time to go live, the Arizona-based fighter hit the challenge full tilt.

“Oh yeah, [Thatch] is a big boy,” Henderson recalled. “He’s a big boy and he’s strong too. He was 197 or whatever going into the Octagon, but he was a strong 197 pounds.”

“There was one time during the fight, I think in the second round, and my coach John Crouch and my wife and I were talking about it where he hit me in the chest. His coaches did a good job because they were telling him I was hard to hit so he needed to go to my body or throw a jab at my chest rather than aim for my head because he was missing a lot. He jabbed my chest and it sent me flying backwards. It felt to me from my point of view like I flew back three feet when he hit me in the chest like that.”

“I was like, ‘Oh no. That’s very bad and not a good sign at all. Make sure he doesn’t do that again.’ I asked John and my wife after the fight if they saw it and if it looked as bad as I thought it did and they both noticed it and agreed that it didn’t look good at all. I told them that it felt as bad as it looked then.”

While Henderson is fresh off one of the best performances of his career, the organizational banner he competes under is enduring one of the roughest stretches in its 21 years of existence. The first two months of the year have been riddled with scandal over failed drug tests by champions and pound-for-pound greats alike. It has cast a dark cloud over the sport of MMA and caused an overwhelming call for change throughout the MMA community.

Henderson has long been an advocate for hard work and clean living, but he doesn’t see himself as a leader in the push for a cleaner sport. He believes that responsibility falls on the UFC and that the current storm of failed drug tests and backlash are the product of whom the company has put their marketing machine behind.

“I think it comes down to who the UFC as an organization decides to pump up,” Henderson said. “If you want to market yourself to the lowest denominator and you want to market yourself to a lower aspect or type of being, what do you expect is going to happen? You are going to pump up this type of personality, well this is what that type of person does. They do these things, and other things are going to come along with it.

“I think a large part of this is to place the onus on the UFC because they are choosing who they decide to pump up. Who are they deciding to put millions of dollars in marketing behind? When you market a certain type of person, don’t be surprised when they do certain things.”

“For me, that’s more of what it is about,” he added. “The UFC has a ton of guys…great guys who are great fighters to boot. The UFC has a ton of great guys who are family men, good fathers, pay their bills on time and don’t have 17 kids out of wedlock. They don’t smoke weed or do other things like that, but for some reason they choose not to pump them up. You kind of reap what you sow. If you were to pump up these other great guys and girls that you have you’d be just fine. But it doesn’t exactly work that way.”

Although Henderson is reveling in the success of his debut showing as a welterweight, the lightweight title he once had has never drifted out of his mind. After coming over from the WEC in 2011, Henderson notched three consecutive wins to earn a shot at the 155-pound title. He would go on to edge out Frankie Edgar to claim the throne, then proceed to successfully defend the belt on three occasions.

While he would go on to lose the title to Anthony Pettis at UFC 164 in August of 2013, the motivation to reclaim the belt has never been extinguished. Henderson is determined to return to the top of the lightweight fold, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get there. 

“By no means have I forgot about the lightweight title,” Henderson said. “Not for one second. We all have goals and we usually talk about things depending on how reporters and journalists lead with their questions. The interviewee is going to stick in the realm of questions he’s asked. If he’s asked about the color blue, he’s not going to talk about the color red, so to speak. I don’t get asked about the belt at 155 that much, but have no doubt, that belt at 155, and now we are even thinking about the belt at 170, but the belt at 155 has not left my mind for one second.”

“If I can get my hands on Anthony Pettis—should he win—or get my hands on Rafael dos Anjos if he wins, either way I’m ready to face either one of those guys today, tomorrow or anytime we can make it happen. We can go five rounds and I’m good. I would place my house on me winning. The belt at 155 has not left my mindset, my vision or my goal at all. It doesn’t get talked about as much and I don’t get asked about it as much and that’s fine, but that is my goal. That should be every fighter at 155 in the UFC’s goal. They should be thinking about that belt and beating who has it.”

With Henderson further validating his “anytime, anyplace” mentality with his efforts at Fight Night 60, the road ahead will be nothing short of interesting. The UFC could ask him to resume his place in the divisional elite at 155 or offer up interesting matchups in the welterweight division as well. Henderson is game for whatever comes his way, but he ultimately knows the direction—or directions—he wants to travel.

The Colorado native has his eyes on championship gold, but should the right opportunity present itself, Henderson and his team are always down for an interesting challenge.

“We’re not really sure what is next,” Henderson said. “We definitely want to be smart about it. We don’t want to lose this good momentum that we have, but the UFC is really kind of a go-with-the-flow thing. There is no set schedule like the NFL or anything like that. There are at times no rhyme or reason to the matchmaking in the UFC. They can need a guy for something so this or that happens. We don’t know.”

“Say somebody gets hurt for this next card in Brazil and they need a 170-pounder to fight down there. I’m feeling pretty good. I could do that. I could take that fight. Let’s go down to Brazil. I’ve never fought in Brazil before and it’s somewhere I want to fight. I have a teammate on the card so let’s do that. 

“I just play it open and play it by ear. I just go with the flow and I think I do that pretty well. I think that’s one of the great things my gym and my coach John Crouch does; we go with the flow and make the best of any situation. We are always moving forward and that’s not going to stop.”

 

Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

David didn’t tempt fate after he toppled the almighty Goliath and neither should Benson Henderson.

In the UFC’s version of Two and a Half Men, the former lightweight champ, welterweight science project Brandon Thatch and referee Herb Dean all stepped into the Octagon on Saturday night for legal fisticuffs in the main event of UFC Fight Night 60.

Faced with the daunting task of going toe-to-toe with the real-life Blanka, Henderson bit down on his toothpick and went to work. The obvious speed disparity reared its head early as Thatch Fee-fi-fo-fum’d his way into range, whiffing on haymakers.

Henderson, always cool and collected, was the matador to Thatch’s bull for the early portion of the bout before taking the fight to the ground and reintroducing MMA fans to his world-class grappling.

Bloodied, battered and forced to fight on an empty gas tank, Thatch finally succumbed to a rear-naked choke in the fourth round by the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.

The 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado, erupted into applause as Henderson pointed to the heavens in celebration, reminding fans that size wasn’t everything and anything was possible. After successfully pulling an Evel Knievel-like stunt, it was thought Henderson would go back down to the lightweight division and resume his journey of reclaiming the UFC title.

Instead, Henderson opted to move past the shallow waters into the welterweight shark tank by calling out perennial 170-pound contender Rory MacDonald.

“I hear there is a big guy up in Canada who needs a fight. I’m game,” Henderson said in a post-fight interview with UFC commentator Joe Rogan.

Henderson’s call-out even surprised MacDonald.

Size isn’t everything in fighting, but it is something when you are competing against equally skilled opposition. After losing to Henderson, Thatch admitted in his post-fight interview with Rogan that he needed more experience to contend with the top fighters.

Just as his nickname implies, Henderson looked smooth against the larger fighter, but the physical toll the fight took on his body was noticeable as well. Conditioning has never been an issue for Henderson, who has made a living off going the distance in main event fights. But against a larger opponent like Thatch, he was forced to exert more energy in dealing with heavier weight.

The upper-echelon lions in the welterweight division aren’t exactly small guys either. Robbie Lawler, Johny Hendricks and MacDonald are all exceptionally large welterweight fighters, especially in comparison to Henderson. They are also well conditioned and highly skilled.

Losses to Donald Cerrone and Rafael Dos Anjos aren’t any reason to turn tail and flee to another weight class. Many, including UFC President Dana White, thought Henderson won the Cerrone fight. As for the loss to Dos Anjos, he got caught up in wild, stand-up exchanges and succumbed to a flash knockout in the first round.

There are plenty of reasons for Henderson to stick around at 155 pounds, besides making another run at the UFC title. It only takes one big punch to change the course of a fighter’s career, and those risks steadily climb the heavier you go in weight.

Henderson was able to avoid taking significant damage from Thatch, but next time, he might not be so fortunate. 

 

Jordy McElroy is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA writer for Rocktagon and FanRag Sports.

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