Issue 086
March 2012
Comic book superhero fanatic Ben Henderson is hoping to live out his own fantasy in Japan – by capturing the UFC lightweight title from the seemingly invincible Frankie Edgar
NEED TO KNOW
NAME BEN HENDERSON
AGE 28
STARTED 2006
TEAM MMA Lab
DIVISION Lightweight
STYLE Wrestling, Bjj, taekwondo
RECORD 15-2
The MMA Lab is situated in a tidy, newly constructed business complex in Glendale, Arizona. Seemingly everything in Glendale is new, everything from the Bass Pro Shop across the street to the massive University of Phoenix Stadium, home to the NFL Arizona Cardinals.
Ben Henderson is running late. When he does finally arrive, he’s openly apologetic and offers to talk in the one other place he considers home – the Octagon. Carrying a thermal coffee mug filled with acai tea, we walk underneath the plexiglass box that houses his World Extreme Cagefighting lightweight championship belt. It is a state-of-the art facility, and he is its greatest warrior.
“I’ve been blessed, honestly,” Henderson says humbly. “The Lord has blessed me with being able to train full-time in a great facility with great instructors. All of it has helped me achieve a lot in a relative short amount of time.”
Blessed, indeed. Henderson has already won a world championship and soon will fight for another when he takes on UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC 144. This is a young man of deep convictions and knows what he believes to be true. And the one thing he knows for certain is he will defeat Frankie Edgar.
Keep your calm
Henderson’s deep Christian beliefs keep him rooted and grounded. Humility keeps a sense of reality in the bombastic world of the UFC and the sport of mixed martial arts. Even as Henderson was riding a 10-fight win streak heading into his second WEC lightweight title defense against Anthony Pettis in 2010, he understood – almost scientifically – that he was bound to lose at some point.
“It’s healthy to acknowledge you will lose at some point,” Henderson says. “And when you do, you regroup and come back. But it’s better to be realistic about it than delude yourself into thinking that it can’t or won’t ever happen.”
And so lose he did to Pettis in dramatic fashion, as Pettis’ roundhouse kick off the fence was the YouTube clip seen around the world. What fans forget amid the excitement of the action-movie highlight was the bout was evenly matched until the kick. “He did a good job,” Henderson says of Pettis. “The judges gave it to him, but he did a good job.”
He boasts an uncanny ability to remain calm in the face of oxygen-depriving adversity. Nearly every fight Henderson finds himself in submission holds that normally would choke a snake. And yet, somehow he manages to fend off the tap and wriggle free. He is nicknamed ‘Bendo’ for a reason. In his first bout with Donald Cerrone in 2009, ‘Cowboy’ clamped on a deep guillotine and joint-busting kimura and still Henderson managed to squirm out and come back for the win.
A lover of comic books and superheroes, perhaps they should call Henderson ‘Plastic Man.’ “I do practice yoga and in training we try to work on flexibility all the time,” Henderson says, while wearing a shirt emblazoned with Captain America’s iconic Stars and Stripes-inspired shield. “However, it’s not all about flexibility. It’s about knowledge. It’s about knowing what the proper defense is for that kimura and how to apply it. Sure, I think my threshold to tap is probably a little greater than most guys, but it’s also about keeping calm and not freaking out when someone sinks in a deep choke.”
That knowledge has got him past a couple of grizzled UFC veterans like Clay Guida and Jim Miller. He dispatched Miller in August, then Guida in a unanimous decision win in November that earned him the number-one contender status and a shot at the Edgar and the title.
“I’m happy but I know I can do a lot better than that,” Henderson said in the post-fight press conference after the UFC’s Fox debut. “I made a few mistakes that didn’t allow me to [finish the fight]. Still I’m glad I was able to hold it together for the win.”
As an early teen, Henderson earned his black belt in taekwondo. Since then, working with John Crouch and Jeff ‘The Jet’ Roufus at the MMA Lab, has continued to improve Henderson’s jiu-jitsu and kickboxing skills, respectively. Also a successful high school and collegiate wrestler at Dana College in Nebraska, Henderson now believes his stand-up skills equal his mat skills. And if that wasn’t enough, his cardio appeared even to outlast Guida and Miller, who are renowned for their motors.
Henderson quotes Iowa wrestling legend Dan Gable: “There aren’t many things you can control in a fight but you can control your cardio,” he offers. “So I know if I have the better cardio, if I need to go 25 minutes straight, I can do it with nothing to worry about.”
Humble beginnings
Growing up in Federal Way, Washington, Henderson and his brother Julius helped his mother run a small convenience store. Despite not particularly enjoying school, Henderson still skipped a grade and graduated from high school early at just 17 years old. He competed at an elite level on the wrestling mat as well and enrolled at Dana College. Going from a culturally and racially diverse city on the West Coast to a landlocked homogenous town in Nebraska was, needless to say, a shock. Being half black and half Korean, you stick out like a sore thumb.
“My grades were bad, I got put on academic probation,” Henderson explains. “It wasn’t good. But a counselor there shaped me up. The small class ratios and extra help I was able to get was exactly what I needed. I went on to have a terrific wrestling career there.”
After completing his schooling at Dana, Henderson stayed on as a volunteer coach. A former teammate told Henderson of some amateur fights that were held in downtown Omaha every Friday night. He signed on to one of the cards, won the fight and was hooked. Despite having two jobs waiting for him in the Omaha and Denver police departments, Henderson decided on MMA.
“Luckily I won the fight,” Henderson laughed. “We might not be talking right now if I didn’t. When that ref raised my hand, I was all in.”
He began training in Denver, driving back and forth to Omaha until finally Henderson knew he had to make a move and train full-time if he wanted to improve. He made the decision after losing a subsequent fight. The feeling disgusted him. “I just packed up all my stuff into my little Toyota Camry and drove five hours to Denver,” Henderson recalls. “I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, so by the time I got to Denver it was like five in the morning. So I had to sleep in my car.”
Today, he’s got an ample support system. His wife, Katie, might be the patron saint of MMA wives. “Man, she puts up with a lot,” Henderson laughs. “The travel, the bills, the money, she takes care of all of that. Not to mention whatever injuries happen from the fights – she’s got to watch me take that pounding.”
But Katie’s accomplished something Henderson’s opponents have all too frequently failed at. Katie caught Henderson in a move he couldn’t get out of. “When we were still dating, Katie was already taking care of my money. You know, moving it around to pay bills, etc. So she knew how much money I had and could see when I’d take money out.
“However, there was one time she saw a suspiciously large charge. She didn’t know what Jared Galleria was, but it’s a jeweler. I had the proposal all figured out and planned until she saw that. She thought I was buying something for another girl! So I had to come clean, and just told her, ‘Here. It’s your engagement ring.’ Seriously, that’s how it went down.”
Nice vice squad
“Teammates and friends still give me a lot of crap for reading books and being a fan of comics,” Henderson says. “I love Superman and Captain America.” Indeed, many fighters retreat into books and comics for a welcome respite from their MMA training. For once, they can let someone else wear the tights and do the fighting.
But if reading comic books is his only vice, Henderson’s doing pretty well.
He isn’t a choirboy – he loves fighting, of course – but he comes pretty close. Growing up with a father saddled by substance abuse issues it’s easy to see why Henderson’s forsaken alcohol. Of course, it doesn’t help when you make your living as a fighter and you have to keep that temple clean.
More than that, Henderson knows what he wants and won’t let anyone stop him from achieving it – Clay Guida, Frankie Edgar or even himself. “When I find something I love,” Henderson says, “and I’m passionate about it, I go after it.” With conviction.
