Benson Henderson Still Humble After Career Milestone

By Frank Curreri

It is good to be Benson Henderson these days. The sultan of “Smooth” hasn’t lost in almost three years. He’s won nine straight fights. And he proudly rocks one of the most chic mops of hair in the fight game.

Can I get an amen?

With WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner up next, Henderson is still on the mend after being kicked in the eye during a grueling five-rounder with Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone. In this interview, conducted days after that spectacular San Antonio showdown with Cerrone, Henderson talks about spending the night in the hospital recovering from severe dehydration, how close he was to tapping against Cerrone, and how his past sparring sessions with Varner will impact their title bout.

WEC: Are you still in rest mode?
Henderson: I’m hanging out, in full rest mode. I’m not supposed to do any physical activity whatsoever. I have to rest my eye. My ophthalmologist is going to do a battery of tests to let me know if I can start working out pretty soon. Hopefully he clears me pretty soon because I’m ready to get back in the gym and back in the swing of things.

WEC: Is this a different injury than the laser surgery you had to correct your vision?
Henderson: It’s something separate from my eye surgery. I just got kicked in the left eye with the heel – in the last freakin’ 20 seconds! I went the whole fight relatively injury-free. Didn’t have any marks on my face, no black eye, no bloody nose, no bloody lip. And then with 20 seconds left I get kicked in the eye.

WEC: After the fight with Donald Cerrone you went to the hospital and were treated for severe dehydration. Talk about that experience.
Henderson: My corner guy, Rob Monroe, my Muay Thai coach, he told me in-between the third and fourth rounds, that I was sweating very little. At the end of the fifth round he said I was completely bone dry, I wasn’t sweating at all. He said, ‘That’s not normal.’ When I went to the ER, they gave me four bags of IV.

WEC: So you basically made your body suck it up for rounds four and five and, as soon as the fight was over, and your brain came back to normal, you started to feel like hell?
Henderson: In the fourth and fifth rounds I was tired. Donald is a great athlete and he can go hard for all five rounds. He did it against Jamie and me. Even at the end of the fight, when they were going to announce the winner, I was struggling just to stay standing. As soon as I left the cage and got off-camera I collapsed. My cornermen had to carry me back to the locker room and I collapsed on the floor as soon as I got there.

I was hoping to go celebrate with all of my family and friends who came out to watch me. I was hoping to go and eat some Korean food, but I ended up staying the whole night in the ER. My coach John Crouch was right beside me the entire night, taking care of me like a little baby. Him and the owner of my gym, Jason Beck, stayed beside me the entire night, too.

WEC: When you saw a replay of your fight with Cerrone, how did you score it?
Henderson: I scored it the same as the judges. I thought I won rounds one, two and three.

WEC: Even in your physical exhaustion and haggard condition, when you were hooked up to an IV, did you actually savor the victory?
Henderson: No, even through the misery I definitely appreciated the ‘W.’ I was very happy. I knew I went as far as I could go and pushed myself, and Donald pushed himself, and we gave a great war. At the end of it I felt vindicated because I did everything I had to do. I enjoyed the ‘W’ even through the misery.

WEC: Some people watched the fight and thought Donald came close to submitting you on five or six occasions. People close to you said you were never really in that much danger, never close to tapping. How close were those submissions in your mind while he was choking you or torqueing your arm?
Henderson: None of those submissions were really that close. I mean, Donald is a great guy, he has great submissions, we all know that. He has some nasty triangle and armbars. So I was mainly trying to stay out of his triangle – he has a nasty triangle. I wasn’t too worried about oma platas or guillotines. None of the submissions

were really that close. Yeah, the guillotine in the first round, that was a lot tighter than I was expecting it to be. As it got tighter, I defended it and managed to get out. In the fourth or fifth round he had me in the modified guillotine … I know that looked pretty gnarly but one of my training partners has done that to me every day for like the past year, so I knew the defense for it … So I was fine in that position. I could stay there all day long. You could squeeze all you want but I could survive. The Kimura looked pretty nasty. It was tight, but not to the point where I was going to tap. He didn’t have the proper grip he really wanted to have to finish it. And I’m a little bit flexible in my shoulders.

WEC: Let’s talk about your next fight, a title showdown with Jamie Varner. I understand that once upon a time the two of you did some training together? How did things go in those sessions?
Henderson: They asked me to come down because he was preparing for Marcus Hicks so he needed to train with a southpaw wrestler, which is exactly what I am. I went down there two or three times, so I didn’t train with him for very long. I did four or five rounds with him each time, and he was nothing but nice and cordial and very professional toward me, so I have nothing bad to say about the guy. He was a cool dude. He’s very tough so it’s going to be another great fight, I think it’s going to be another war.

WEC: Varner has said, ‘I feel like Ben is a better matchup for me.’ How do you feel about that? Do you think you match up better with him than Donald?
Henderson: I think Jamie and I match up pretty well. We’re similar fighters. He’s a good boxer and he’s been boxing a lot longer than I have. Collegiately, I think I’m a better wrestler than him. My MMA wrestling is better than him. He’s a tough guy and a good champion, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a good fight.

WEC: How soon might we see you back in the Octagon?
Henderson: I have to wait and see back from my Ophthalmologist. It’s a wait-and-see type of thing.

WEC: A lot of people believe the fight between you and Donald could be Fight of the Year. Is that something you realized immediately after the fight was over, that you were part of something special and historic? When did that occur to you?
Henderson: It still hasn’t occurred to me yet. Of course all of my family and friends have said to me, ‘Oh that was the best fight of the year … that was the best fight in the history of the WEC!’ But they’re biased; they’re going to say that. And I’ve had a lot of reporters and fans say that, too. It’s awesome and I’m appreciative of the fact that they say that. But it hasn’t really hit me yet.

WEC: Did you learn anything about yourself after that fight?
Henderson: It just verifies that that yes, I can go five rounds, and go hard all 25 minutes. You do have that desire deep down and ‘no quit’ attitude. And it’s something you have to prove to yourself, not just once. I’ve only proved it one time. The next fight I have to prove it again. And then I have to prove it again and again and again. And then in practice, I’ll have guys coming to my gym that will see me and want to train jiu-jitsu or MMA with me, and then I’ll have to prove myself again in practice.

WEC: Let’s talk about your hair. It’s long, it’s an extension of your personality, it’s spunky and playful and cool. Yet in the middle of fights, how much of an obstruction is it? It’s the same thing we wonder with Clay Guida. Have you ever been concerned that perhaps it the swaying of the locks could hurt you with the judges because of judges presuming that punches are doing more damage than they actually are? What are the chances it gets chopped off?
Henderson: No, the hair is staying. I dig the hair too much. I just like it. Sometimes the hair does get in my way. But sometimes guys will pull my hair out and it gets in their mouth and they have to pull it out. It’s an advantage for me and I have to keep all of the little advantages that I can.

But if I’m offered a lot of money to chop the hair for a video game, you better believe its coming off.