All Part of the Plan

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Ben Henderson expected to be here, an elite mixed martial artist on the cusp of superstardom with only one man standing between him and the crown jewel of the lightweight division. However, even he had to wonder whether or not his plans would come to fruition after he was victimized by Anthony Pettis and his “Showtime Kick” in such a high-profile setting back in December 2010.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Henderson said during a pre-fight teleconference for UFC 144. “The Lord does work in mysterious ways. Maybe back then I wasn’t quite ready, wasn’t quite up to snuff, whatever the reason was. Here I am now ready to run with it.”

Adversity did nothing to shake Henderson’s resolve, as he rebounded from his unanimous decision defeat to Pettis with three consecutive wins inside the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The world-ranked 28-year-old will challenge Frankie Edgar for his lightweight title in the UFC 144 main event on Saturday at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The golden opportunity for which Henderson has long worked and waited has finally arrived.

“It means a lot,” he said. “You want to face guys who are top opponents. You want to face guys who are defending the belt five, six, seven times. I want to fight the best guys on the planet, and I want to beat the best guys on the planet. Frankie’s definitely up there. He’s defended his belt a bunch of times. He’s had great wars. There’s nothing bad you can say about him at all. To fight someone like him, to take the belt from a fighter like Frankie, a champion like Frankie -- it will definitely be an honor.”

A Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt under Royce Gracie protégé John Crouch, Henderson (15-2, 3-0 UFC) will enter the cage on the strength of his riveting unanimous decision victory over Jackson’s Mixed Martial Arts standout Clay Guida in November. That fight, unlike this one, took place away from the spotlight as part of the UFC on Fox 1 “Velasquez vs. Dos Santos” event that featured only one televised bout.

“I’m very excited to be in the main event because, [in] my last fight, I was kind of on the back burner, even though I thought it was going to be an exciting fight; a lot of people thought it was going to be an exciting fight,” Henderson said. “It is what it is. It’s up to the higher-ups to decide who’s going to be on the main card [and in] the main event airing on Fox.

“To have my fight not air, it was a little upsetting, so it’s nice to be in the main event with no big guys ahead of us,” he added. “Heavyweights always get to steal the show, so it’s nice to not have the show keep going because they weigh a hundred pounds more than me.”

Still, the encounter with Guida was laden with value. The two lightweights went after one another for 15 minutes, and Henderson believes the frenetic pace he was forced to keep against “The Carpenter” can only help sharpen him for Edgar.


“I think they’re pretty similar in effect but different in how they go about it; a lot of movement between Frankie and Clay,” he said. “Frankie’s a little more polished, a little better at what he does: great movement, non-stop movement. After the fight, I was very thankful for having fought Clay because it did somewhat help prepare [me] and at least give me a feel for where I am in the cage with someone like that who does have non-stop movement. Hopefully, that will help me against Frankie.”

Henderson, having never fought outside of North America, has gone the extra mile in an attempt to acclimate himself to the 17-hour time difference between his base at the MMA Lab in Glendale, Ariz., and Japan. He adjusted his sparring and training times and sought the advice of teammate Rick Roufus, a decorated kickboxer who has competed internationally for decades.

“I definitely picked his brain on some things we need to do,” Henderson said. “One of the things I didn’t think about was food [and] making sure you have the food your body needs and whatnot. The food over there in Japan is going to be quite different, especially the pre-weigh-in-food. I’ll be on a strict diet making sure I’m good to go with that stuff. There were some other little things I never would have thought about: ‘Oh, wow, I should have realized that. I didn’t even think about that.’”

Not short on confidence, Henderson views Edgar as a significant opportunity to move towards his ultimate goal of being recognized as the best of the best. Win or lose, he seems to have a solid grasp on reality and understands he has many miles to go before he catches up with the Anderson Silvas, Georges St. Pierres and Jon Joneses of the world.

“I don’t think me beating Frankie gets me anywhere near the conversation,” Henderson said. “I think I have to beat Frankie and beat a couple of other guys [and] defend the belt. What is Anderson up to, like 12 [title defenses] right now, 13? I definitely have long-term goals [and] short-term goals, but that has been my goal since I first got into fighting: to be the best fighter on the planet, no ifs, ands or buts about it; not one of the best, not Top 5, not Top 3. I want to be the best pound-for-pound fighter -- period.

“That goal is still in my sights,” he added. “I still always wake up thinking about that.”