Issue 101

May 2013

Benson Henderson’s older brother, Julius Henderson, chats to Fighters Only’s Gareth A Davies to share a sibling’s perspective on having a champion fighter in the family.

I’m older by about a year and a half. I did a little bit of fighting back in the day when I was younger and everybody in my family would have chosen me as the one who was going to be a fighter. 

Benson loved his comic books and so I took an interest in whatever he liked. He was really quiet, a shy guy, who wanted to stick to himself and not really do anything when we were young. 

My brother and I have always been big fans of MMA and I just know that my brother has a really big heart. As for me, if I get hit in the face, I get beat up, I don’t want to get up and do it again the next day. It doesn’t bother him. 

I guess you could use the word ruthless to describe him but I know it’s just determination. There’s no quit in him at all and he knows if he trains with the best, if he trains hard, he’s just not going to lose to anybody.

Most fighters feel like that, of course, but he’s just 100% sure he’s not going to lose to the other guy – mentally, physically, whatever. He has this determination like nobody I’ve ever known. 

I first saw that during his college days, when he became his own person, developed his own identity, had a new-found confidence that I’d never seen in him before.

There’s no dark side to him, he sees everything in black and white and he always has. There’s good and bad, there’s no gray, there’s no in-between for the most part with him in life. We have our debates and I think there’s a lot of gray in the world. Ben just doesn’t feel that way. 

Around our early teens, Ben was more or less doing his own thing and I was always doing my own thing. Even though we were close in age we were like worlds apart growing up because, like I said, he liked to stay home and I liked to party. 

It took me a lot longer than him to appreciate everything my mom did for us because I didn’t realize how hard she had to work until I really grew up. 

My mom is a very special lady and I know she’s the hardest-working person I’ve ever met. Through all her hardships and all the ups and downs she just never gave up. She always provided us with everything she could. Ben was always very aware of that. 

I don’t know if it relates to martial arts but growing up in second grade, third grade, fourth grade, it was like the Joy Luck Club, the movie about the Asian- American experience for first and second generation of Asians coming to the US. We had like five families living in one household and they were all Korean, and grandma kind of raised us. 

Five or six kids there, all with single mothers, who worked a lot. The matriarch only spoke Korean so we grew up pretty much Korean, went to a Korean church, but being half black as well growing up was a little different. 

People just didn’t understand who we were, what we were about, what we represented as far as our Korean culture, so it made us feel different I guess. We went to bible study and church retreats. I started doing bad things aged around 16, 17. 

I fell victim to the outside pressures of growing up. I got into a job early, I got into relationships early, moved out of the house early, I just did my own thing. I got into drinking and drugs, getting into trouble with the law. 

We’ve always been close, it’s always been me my mom and my brother and me. That’s our family. When Ben was in college and mom didn’t have any money, I’d get Ben’s wrestling shoes. 

Now he takes care of me financially and does things for me no questions asked. That’s just how it is for our family. It’s all because of our mom, and the life lessons she taught us. 

But for the most part, it was me learning from Ben growing up. It took me a while to grow up really and do the right things and I’ve looked up to my brother a lot later in life because of the way he has lived his life. In all honestly, I’ve tried to change my ways to grow up for him. He’s a special guy.