Issue 092

September 2012

Two-time Olympic wrestling competitor and mixed martial arts legend, Dan Henderson is still fighting into his 40s. Why? He’s got some unfinished business to take care of… the small matter of a UFC championship belt.

Very few people in life can say they’ve reached the pinnacle of their profession. Even fewer can say they’ve been to the mountaintop in two different fields. At 41 years old, and coming off of one of the most brutal and memorable matchups in UFC history, Dan Henderson is just such a man.

“It’s almost two separate lives and two separate careers,” Henderson tells Fighters Only. “And I wouldn’t trade either one.” 

Born in 1970, Henderson grew up in California, where he excelled as a high-school wrestler, competing on a pair of state champion teams at Victor Valley High School. "Hendo" was so talented, he actually tried out for the US Olympic team following his senior year. The tryout didn’t go precisely as planned, but the experience opened his eyes to the possibilities that might lie ahead as a Greco-Roman stylist.

“I’d say I realized that I could make it to the Olympics when I was a senior in high school, when I made it to the Olympic trials,” Henderson recalls. “I got my butt kicked there, but I definitely felt I was capable of making the team. It was just a matter of dedication and some good coaching.” 

Henderson went on to wrestle collegiately at both Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State University, where he continued to refine his technique and approach to grappling. In 1992, he gave his Olympic dream another go. The US team brings just one wrestler per weight class to each Olympic Games, forcing an athlete to be the best in the nation if he hopes to represent the red, white and blue. This time, Henderson was up to the challenge.

“Between those two tryouts, I traveled to Europe a number of times for wrestling, mostly to Russia, and next thing you know I made the Olympic team out of nowhere,” he says.

At 21 years old, he traveled to Barcelona, where he earned a 10th-place finish in the middleweight division. Four years later, Henderson qualified for his second Olympic Games, competing on home soil in Atlanta, where he would finish in 12th.

Like all athletes dedicated enough to their craft to qualify for the Olympics, earning a medal is the ultimate goal. Henderson fell short in that bid, but 16 years after his second and final appearance in the Games, he still recalls those times as some of the greatest in his incredible athletic career.

“It was a goal of mine to get the Olympics, but it was also a goal to medal,” Henderson says. “I got to the Olympics twice, but I didn’t medal, so there’s obvious pride there but a little regret, as well. I was disappointed that I didn’t win a medal, but at the same time, I was proud of the fact that I made it.

“But it’s pretty tough just to make the team when you’re only taking one guy per weight class in the US. It’s definitely something that I was proud of. It’s right up there as one of the greatest accomplishments in my career. It was definitely a great experience and something that made me feel very patriotic.”

Following the Atlanta Games in 1996, Henderson and fellow future MMA great Randy Couture began to seek out opportunities to remain in competition. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was still in its infancy, a time when rules were still developing and the idea of dividing the talent into weight classes was just beginning to gain hold. Henderson recalls watching the sport, but the thought of competing in it never occurred to him. 

One phone call from ‘The Natural’ changed all of that, however. “I didn’t even have any thoughts of doing MMA,” he says. “Randy Couture and I had watched it, and I thought, ‘That would be kind of fun to try,’ but I wasn’t really serious about getting in there with those big 350lb’ers and whatever else. 

“Then we had a chance to go fight down in Brazil. Randy called me up two weeks before the fight, and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try it.’ He was scheduled to fight in a heavyweight tournament but got a call to fight in the UFC at the last minute, so he went there instead for his first fight within a couple weeks of my first fight.”

The change of plans led Couture to Augusta, Georgia, on May 30th 1997, where he earned victories over Steven Graham and Tony Halme, claiming a four-man tournament victory in the process. Henderson replicated the feat two weeks later in Brazil, making his professional debut with wins over Eric Smith and Crezio de Souza.

He chuckles a bit when recalling that experience now, admitting he was little more than a wrestler when he launched his MMA career. “I got the basics on how to not get submitted,” Henderson says. “Then I went and hit a heavy bag and maybe some focus mitts a little bit. I never sparred. Even a year later when I fought in the UFC,

I had still never sparred. I just thought I was doing good hitting the pads.”

Henderson’s MMA career progressed rapidly. Following the appearance in Brazil, he debuted in the UFC, notching wins over a then-undefeated Allan Goes and future UFC champion Carlos Newton. After that, it was a victory in one of the most talent-laden tournaments in MMA history, as Henderson claimed the Rings King of Kings 1999 tournament title with wins over Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Gilbert Yvel, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Bakouri Gogitidze.

Still, Henderson had not yet let go of his dreams of securing an Olympic medal, and in 2000 he made another bid for the Games, when he was already nine fights into his MMA career.

“I tried again in 2000,” Henderson recalls. “I was doing real well that year. Right before the trials, I beat the world champ. I just had a bad match in the trials and lost and was done.”

Top Brazilian jiu-jitsu artists competing in MMA often cite the difficulty in maintaining simultaneous championship form in pure grappling competitions and MMA, generally choosing to focus on just one sport at a time. Similarly, former Bellator Fighting Championships title-holder Joe Warren lost his title in March while focusing on a bid for the 2012 London Games. He was then defeated in the semi-final round of the US Olympic Team Trials, eliminating his chances of an appearance in London.

Henderson believes MMA has evolved so quickly in the past 15 years that it now requires full-time dedication. “It’s pretty tough to balance both,” he says. “I had been wrestling for so long that I could probably get away with it, wrestling-wise, as long as I was in shape. But MMA-wise, there’s so much to learn. 

“You can’t come into this just as a wrestler or someone that’s only doing it half-assed. MMA is just so much tougher unless you’ve been doing it a long time and have that experience, but when you’re first coming into it, there’s no way you can try and focus on another sport, as well.”

For Henderson, 2000 marked the end of his career in wrestling, and he shifted his focus solely to mixed martial arts. Still, he believes the time he spent in wrestling prepared him both physically and mentally for the rigors of MMA.

“It’s definitely a huge experience booster,” Henderson says. “It’s just that experience of big competitions and where you’re at mentally. Your work ethic in wrestling in general is a pretty good work ethic – even college and high school wrestlers will have that. At the Olympic level, it can give you an even bigger head start into MMA.”

Henderson put that head start to incredible use, building over the past 15 years what is unquestionably one of the most prolific careers in the sport’s history and what many MMA pundits believe is the most spectacular career ever produced by a mixed martial artist born in the US. 

In addition to the UFC and Rings tournament titles, Henderson also earned a tournament win in Pride’s 2005 welterweight grand prix, and in 2007, he knocked out MMA legend Wanderlei Silva to claim Pride’s middleweight title. But on September 1st, Henderson may very well face his greatest challenge to date, when he takes on the seemingly invincible Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight title in the headliner of UFC 151.

“I’ve watched Jon fight here and there, and then he got that fill-in shot at the title last year and did well,” Henderson admits. “He’s got one of those styles that gives a lot of guys trouble. I guess it wasn’t out of the question that he’s done as well as he’s done.”

Jones, of course, in 2011, put together what is widely considered one of the best calendar years in MMA history when he dispatched former champs Lyoto Machida, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua with ease, not to mention then-undefeated prospect Ryan Bader. ‘Bones’ then opened 2012 with a one-sided decision win over Rashad Evans, completing a fourth-straight vitory for Jones over a former champion.

Henderson knew prior to the Jones vs Evans affair that he would await the winner, and he says he actually preferred the option of facing the current champion rather than ‘Suga,’ despite how unbeatable Jones has looked inside the Octagon.

“The belt is the belt, but honestly I think Jones is a better matchup for me than Rashad,” Henderson states. “It’s just a different style of wrestling. Rashad would have been shooting a little bit more. I’d have to be a little bit more careful about being put on my back – not that I don’t have to worry about that against Jones, but it’s just a little different way, a different style.”

Henderson also believes the fight with Jones is a fight the fans want to see. As Jones’ stature in the sport has grown, so, too, has a faction of MMA followers who hope to see him fall, and Henderson said the feedback he’s received since the fight was officially announced has been rivaled only by similar chatter ahead of his UFC 100 bout with perennial heel Michael Bisping.

“I think the fans probably prefer me fighting Jones rather than Rashad, also. I don’t know exactly why, but there’s only been one other time in my career that people tell me – or nowadays on Twitter, ask me – to please beat somebody up or please knock somebody out because they really don’t like them,” he says. “The only other time I’ve ever had that happen is with Bisping. Now that I’m fighting Jones, that’s what I’m getting again: ‘Please knock him out.’ 

“It’s not, ‘Good luck in your fight.’ It’s not, ‘Do well,’ because they’re my fans. It’s because they dislike Jones so much. I don’t know why, but I think fans want to see that.”

For his part, Henderson said he doesn’t necessarily know if he agrees or not with the hate directed towards the champ, 17 years his junior. “I don’t know him well enough one way or the other. I haven’t seen him in public that much. I’m a fan of how he fights, but I’m not sure if I’m a fan of him or not. I think a lot of people are that way. I think he’s tough, for sure, and he’s young.”

Should Henderson find some chink in Jones’ armor it may very well prove the most glorious moment of his legendary career – beating the odds and taking out the seemingly unbeatable champ. Would it be enough for Henderson to walk away? Would the UFC title provide that one final moment in the spotlight?

Henderson said he’s not really considering that just yet. For now, it’s all about putting on a show, and the man who has seen the mountaintop in two separate careers isn’t quite ready to descend the peak just yet. “It’s more about the fights the fans want to see,” Henderson adds. “I want big fights. I don’t need fights that really aren’t significant. I’m interested in fighting the bigger fights… The old man is not quite done yet.”

The legacy of a legend

At 41 years old, Dan Henderson is certainly no spring chicken. Yet even at his advanced age, ‘Hendo’ continues to turn in virtuoso performances, such as his recent wins over Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and Fedor Emelianenko. The longevity of his career is rivaled only by that of his old friend Randy Couture, who retired from the UFC at age 47. 

Couture and Henderson share a history together, and the longtime wrestlers collaborated along with Matt Lindland to form the original foundation of the legendary Team Quest. So is it sheer coincidence that two former teammates hold the secret to longevity in MMA, or did Team Quest strike into some kind of fountain of sporting youth.

“Maybe we’re just slow learners and it took us a while,” Henderson jokes. “I think we learn from everybody. We have open minds, and we enjoy learning new things. We’ve both gotten smarter with our training over the years. This sport is an experience sport, for the most part. We both have quite a bit of that.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’ve done fairly good throughout my career. I had a couple fights where I lost here and there. I don’t plan on that happening again, though.”

Many of Henderson’s greatest accomplishments took place overseas during his time fighting for Rings and Pride, which may hinder his shot at a UFC Hall of Fame slot. However, if there were a truly independent MMA Hall of Fame, Henderson would surely make it on his first ballot.

Should he unseat the UFC’s light heavyweight champion Jon Jones at UFC 151 in Las Vegas, it would certainly rank among the best moments of his career, but he’s had several other that factored into his status as one of the all-time greats. But does Henderson ever take the time to consider his MMA legacy?

“Not a whole lot,” he admits. “I don’t think about it too much. I’m not done yet, in my mind, so I’m not going to look back and think about all the things I’ve done. 

“I’ve definitely learned from my experiences in my fights over the years. Winning or losing, I learned from them all. That’s about all I think of. I mean, I’ve done some pretty good things, but I have some goals I still need to accomplish, and those are what I focus on.”

Hendo's secret of longevity

While Dan Henderson has enough championship title belts to fill even the largest of trophy cases, his time representing the US in wrestling also left him with some unique memorabilia in national team singlets and Olympic paraphernalia.

So does Henderson feature the gear prominently in his California home? Not exactly. “I’ve got some of that stuff somewhere,” he acknowledges, with a laugh. “I haven’t seen it in a while, but I know I have it around somewhere.”

Of course, Henderson doesn’t really need to have the gear on display to have his wrestling prowess recognized. His grappling skills have long been the cornerstone of his MMA game, even though the massive right hand – dubbed the ‘H-Bomb’ by veteran broadcaster Mauro Ranallo – has become his calling card.

Henderson admits he was simply a pure wrestler when he began his career 15 years ago, but wouldn’t recommend others take the same approach nowadays. “At this level in MMA, of course, you can’t just have an Olympic wrestling background and think you’re going to do well. You’ll be able to take a guy down, but you could get submitted. You might get caught on your feet, and your fights will be pretty boring. 

“You really have to work hard and learn all the martial arts, which is why I enjoyed it so much when I first started. I was learning a lot of new things every day rather than doing the same old things over and over in wrestling that I had been doing for 10 years.”