MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good: Remembering The 'Smooth' Career Of Benson Henderson

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and on the third episode of 2023, the MMA Fighting crew remembers the best of former UFC and WEC lightweight champion, Benson Henderson. Beginning his career in 2006, Henderson quickly made a name for himself as one of the most dynamic and exciting fighters in MMA, participating in both the 2009 and 2010 Fights of the Year. Those fights, both in the WEC, set up his most memorable career run, where he served as the UFC lightweight champion from 2012 to 2013, defending the title three times. After losing his belt to Anthony Pettis in 2013, Henderson remained a going concern in the UFC lightweight and welterweight divisions before becoming one of the first major free agents to depart the UFC and head to Bellator, where he would spend the rest of his career, challenging for titles on three separate occasions. One of the lightweight division's many overlooked champions, Henderson's 17-year career came to an end earlier this month when he retired after losing the Usman Nurmagomedov in the first round of the Bellator Lightweight Grand Prix, and so to honor the man affectionately dubbed "Bendo," host Jed Meshew is joined by MMAFighting's Shaheen Al-Shatti and Mike Heck to remember their favorite moments from his incredible career. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Mike Heck @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Hello, friends, and welcome. My name is Jed Michoud. I'm a writer for MAAfighting.com. It's a great website. And you know what time it is. We're back, baby. another episode of Damn They Were Good in the can for you. And I'm excited because this one we were talking about in the pre-show.

It's going to be a really interesting one. It's not, you know, the guy we're talking about today, not one of the greatest, greatest of all time, not one of the greatest action fighters. But I think one of the most interesting careers to dive into, to dissect. So let's get right into it. And as always, got to introduce the panel, the esteemed colleagues joining me,

and I've got two guys that are perfect for this, first, we just call it like it is, the best damn host. Not just an MMA media, in media in general. He is the flagship, the standard bearer of the, I mean, all the shows you love, heck of a morning between the links. Almost every pre and post show that MMAFighting.com great website does, the one and only Mr. Mike Heck. And joining me and Mike today, as almost as always at this point in time,

editor, the best writer in the whole of the world, Mr. Sheehanal Shadi, Fellas. Thanks for being here. How are we doing? What's up? It's good to be here, as always. And I'm excited for this one. I miss the pre-show, so I miss what you guys were talking about. The way this is being framed already has me, my interest piqued, because I think I might have different, maybe coming at this from a different angle than you guys, but I could be wrong. You probably are, which is why we want to, kind of why I wanted to have you on here in general, because let's talk about who we're talking about.

It's the one, the only smooth Benson Henderson, former UFC lightweight champion, former WEC lightweight champion, and the recently retired Benson Henderson, in fact, came up short against Usman Numergometov at Beltor 292 earlier this month, decides to hang up the gloves, and so we decide to talk about him.

Jehine is a longtime Arizona guy. Also as a zona guy, I think that might be worth some of your perspective, But for me, kind of what me and Mike were talking about in the pre-show is just, it's a really interesting career, right? He, some of these categories, it was trickier than previous shows to fill out for me. And I'm just, I hadn't thought about Benson Henderson in this way in sort of a long time, because he'd been in Bellator for a while, which was kind of oddly off the radar, despite the fact that he just challenged for a world title earlier this month. And that's kind of as I dove into It was like, what a weird career he's had.

So before we get into it, Mike, do you agree with me when we were talking? You said it's really interesting. Where are you coming at from this perspective of Bindo, the review as an interesting, you know, deep dive? I don't think a lot of people have really deep dove into the career of Benson Henderson. I think he's kind of very short-termy when you think about his runs and, you know, know, he's a guy you kind of look at in like five fight stretches. Oh, this is what he did at his last four fights. This is what he did is, you know, from this time to this time. But to look at the overarching completion of his career from start to finish, the UFC run, the

Bellator run. And every time you bring it up that he's had more Bellator fights and he had UFC fights, it blows people's minds. It's crazy to think about that he spent the most of, most of his professional fighting career, like with Bellator. And, you know, we'll talk about obviously how he got there and what a big moment it was for the sport that he actually went over there. But yeah, it was a really, really interesting time to like dive deep into his career and go back to 2009, that, you know, beginning of this just incredible stretch of fun and exciting fights for him and big finishes and the peak of his powers, if you will. And yeah, it's been a while since I've gone back and watch those fights. Obviously, the Soroni, the Soroni fights, I went back

watched a while ago because we did a dam on Donald Soroni after he retired. But just going back and diving deep into the career of Benson Henderson, yeah, I think interesting is the perfect word when you're trying to categorize different parts of his career. So yeah, this is definitely different than the Seroni one or any other one that I've been a part of. Yeah, I think that you hit the nail in the head. His career had so many different ages, stages, levels to it, wherever you want to go. I mean, obviously broken up into three big organizations. And even his run during there gets really weird. And as I dove into this and I was thinking more and obviously a lot of talk lately for various reasons has been about historical importance in this sport.

We're talking about is John Jones, the greatest fighter we've ever seen. Talking about, you know, where well Alexander Volcanovsky rank if he wins the lightweight belt, sort of how does all of this shake out as far as these, what's Kamar Usman's status in the welterweight all time? coming off a second loss to Leon Edwards. All of this is swirling around my head as I'm diving back into a career, which honestly doesn't totally jump off the page at you. Certainly if you weren't living in the time of Benson Henderson, I think you're not looking back on this and being like, wow, this guy was a mover and shaker for an extended period of time.

You're just kind of looking at, oh, ton of split decisions, kind of weird to think about him. And so that's going to lead me into my big question before we hop into the categories. And it's quite simply this. Where does Benson Henderson rank historically among lightweights? Because lightweight has been the division, which I think it is the hardest to define a goat in, like an all-time great fighter. Habib, to some extent, has nullified that conversation with his incredible run, defending the belt a bunch of times, and then just walking away on. top. I think we sort of all default to Habib now, and I'm not saying that that's wrong, because it's certainly not, but if you pull him, I don't think he has an ironclad case,

and if you pull him out of it entirely, or you include him, finding the number two guy behind Habib at lightweight is a super muddied waters. So, Shaheen, fellow Arizona guy, where does Bindo rank all time as a lightweight? that to me is one of the most interesting questions when it comes to his career, just period. Right? And really just how we think of him in a historical perspective. Because I do want to backtrack just real quick for something.

Mike said, you said that he spent the majority of his career in Bellator, and it's not something we think about. You sure did. It's not the way we associate him. Majority is the right way to frame it. Because not only did he, like, the time of distance between his WC debut and the final UFC bout was 2,497 days, even combined that. that is not as much as he spent in Belta.

Look at you bringing the stats. She had outshadhi. You put the WEC and UFC together and he still was in Bellator longer, which is the most bizarre stat of all for this man for me. Because it feels like the Bellator run just kind of happened in a span of three months. It feels like that thing just happened in a flash, whereas that first part, those first two-thirds of his career, and it's not two-thirds isn't even the right way to frame it, really.

But just those first two chapters of this, his career feel like they took so long and they were so all encompassing and it was such a big deal and then the Bellator thing was just on the side. So that to me is just always going to be weird when it comes to Benson. But in terms of historical framing, I have long been on the corner that I believe this man is a top five lightweight of all time. And I feel very strongly in that. And I know a lot of people. So I was trying to put one together for this. Lightweight's a really hard to do it. It's impossible. historical perspective because it's Habib. Habib stands above everybody just because of his level of

dominance and though he didn't have the time there that he put in like a lot of these guys, just the sheer fact that no one touched him, I think you have to put him in that spot. And then also he does have sort of the record, right? Like that UFC lightweight title of defense record is the weirdest sort of record of all these divisions title defense records because you have three, maybe heavyweight you could throw in there too. you have what three four guys four you have four guys because we were talking about this pre show where i was making a joke that islam has two title defenses left and then he's got to be done because every lightweight champion either immediately loses the belt or they defend it three times and then

they're out yeah and i think all all of those guys end up on my top five lightways of some kind Habib. And then BJ to me feels like he has to be number two, just as like a standard bearer of like this is the guy that sort of brought the division into prominence, like with the first big star in the division, the first guy that was really that dominant guy. It feels like he has to sort of just be there from like the Wilts Chamberlain level of like, you know, early Bill Russell level, like early guy. Yeah. And then then from there, it's hard, man. It's a very, very muddied water. Like you said, I think Benson and Frankie have to be in that top five. And then at Then you can go any sort of order of whether RDA, Eddie Alvarez, Charles Olivera maybe can even

slip in there. And then you have the non-title guys like a Tony Ferguson or a Dustin Poirier. That to me feels like whatever, I think what is that? Two, four. That's nine names. That feels to me like a good top nine. But I think Benson has to be in that top four with Frankie, BJ, and Habib. Just sheer fact of resume.

Because to me, he has one of the most underrated resumes. in this division's history. It's a very good one, and we're going to talk a lot about it. I do want to pause you there. It's sneaky great. Because I want to ask if Mike agrees. I saw him shaking his head on some of the comments. So how are you feeling?

Is Vincent Henderson a top five lightweight all time, Mike? If you want to make that case, like I'll listen to it. But again, I completely agree with Shaheen. I was shaking my head at something else. It wasn't shaking my head of what Shaheen was saying. One and two are locked. It's Habib and BJ. some people put BJ one, some people put Habib one.

Most people I think would put Habib one. But then, yeah, you're dealing with very interesting territory with Eddie. And then even with Oliver and that run he had to get to the belt and the defenses he had. And RDA had a great run. And even like Frankie Edgar had a really strong run at 155 when that was nowhere near his actual best weight class that he could have competed in during his career. And then Dustin and then Ferguson. and then you can even go to the GOMIs and the Iokies of the world. Like there's so many different ways you can go about this.

Like Anthony Pettis has beaten Benson Henderson twice. He has two wins over the guy. He's not even talked about it. And he's not even in the conversation. In spectacular fashion both times. Yeah. And then like, you know, what ifs like, Gil and Melendez could be on the better side of a couple of splities,

like he might be on this list. Like it's just, it's crazy to think about it. And then we talk about Justin Gachie and how much we admire his style. and some of the runs he's been on and some of the victories he's had. So lightweight is the Cadillac Division. It has been for many, many years, probably for the entire history of the sport. It's so tough. Like, it's a mix and match.

It's one and two. And then you could throw six, seven different guys into this mix. And your mind could change every week if you really went back and deep dove into all these guys' careers. So for me, I would probably put Benson in the top five. I would probably put them in the top five. You'd probably have to sell me to get them out of there right now, but I don't know if it would be a really tough sell to get them out of there just because there's so many names that you can make a case for right now.

So one and two, great. The rest, I mean, there's, there might be 10 guys you could throw into the top five that you can make a case for. So, but right now I think I would put, I think I would put Benson most notably for the four, four and a half year stretch he had between 2009 and 2013. when he lost the belt, the peddice. I mean, incredible run that guy had. And that's, that's the thing that's so tough about lightweights when it comes to this historical conversation, because every lightweight has a great run to some sort of tie. Like in this conversation, every lightweight

has a great run to like a title or like just something like that. And then once they fall off, they fall off really hard. Right. Like this is just not a division that is kind to men in their late 30s. This is not a division that is kind to a post prime champion. All of these, these dudes struggled that we talk about in this conversation after sort of their big run, after sort of their historical run. And so that's just, I think that's with the Habib thing, right? Like, he got out before he even began to experience that. So we think of him in such a different capacity.

We've talked about this sort of element on other versions of this show, too, of just like getting out when people think you're unbeatable does such an incredible thing to your resume and your historical legacy that all of these other dudes who just lasted too long, in it too long, it affects them in a way that is pretty profound. Yeah, man, it's a huge advantage for nobody to ever have seen what it looks like for you to take an L like that, because you can't even look back on it and be like, oh, I remember when BJ got tuned up by Nick Diaz, you can't do that with Abe. I have, I made my list because I knew I was going to ask this question, and I currently have

Benson Henderson barely holding on to the five spot because I'm fully with. you guys in that it's a Habeeb and BJ and BJ there's an argument that he's not there just because a lot of his run was spaced out not at lightweight but I think his just historical import gives him enough juice there I he's BJ Penn he's a that's a name that means him exactly he's BJ Penn and he was your favorite fighter's favorite fighter for like a decade and so that's that's enough I've got Eddie uh moving in it at the three spot right now less from what he's done in the but prior to the UFC, he'd done just about everything across a myriad of organizations. And I respect his run, even though it maybe didn't go as well as you would have hoped

inside the UFC that he did obviously claim the belt. And then my four spot, Shaheen, at one point in time, I was thinking about Tony Ferguson there. So I'm sorry for you that I couldn't. I don't think he belongs. I don't think he belongs. I think he's got a case, like he's one of those 10 guys or whatever. that has a case because that run, that 13 fight or 12 fight, whatever it was, was a great run. But I've got Porre sliding into the four slot and I've got Benson just micro-millimeter,

millimeters in front of Charles Oliverer for the five. And if Oliver comes back and beats Benildare Ush, that might be enough. I mean, lightweight's so tough. And that's why I was so fascinated looking back at Benson Henderson because he, this is a guy who was tied for the most lightweight title defenses in UFC history. And even with that, he might not be a top five lightweight of all time. He was a WEC lightweight champion. He fought for the Bellator belt like two or three times, at least twice, and he still might not be a top five lightweight. And that's really unique. Like if we're talking about people who have done that in a division

for almost two decades, that level of sustained success, usually you're talking about easily one of the best guys that's ever been in the world. And yet, because of the nature of lightweight, and frankly, we're going to get into it, the nature of some of Benson's wins, the questionable decision making from some of the judges and some of these, it makes his career fascinating to me as I sort of dove dove into it deep. Now, we are trying to be a little bit better about not going for three hours. So we're going to move to the categories. But before we do, we've gotten Arizona native on this podcast. Benson Henderson,

famously a student of MMA Lab, Arizona through and through. Shaheen, in case there isn't a space for this in any of the stuff we're talking about, you know, Benson. I would like to hear your favorite Benson story. If you have more than one shoot, but give me your favorite thing from the smooth man himself. Favorite Benson story. Oh, man, you should have prepped me on this one. That's tough on the spot. I don't know, man. I just, because I know the direction, I can already sense the direction that this podcast is headed. So I almost want to just like curtail it before we even get there because you had mentioned sort of the nature of his UFC title reign. And I think that's why we think about, some people think about him in this perspective that maybe, to me, doesn't feel right.

And that, rewatching his old fights for this, for this experience, for this endeavor that we're doing was so much fun to me. Because I think we truly forget just what an absolute force of nature young Benson was and how entertaining he was. Like how, that man was entertainment personified in that cage. He is someone who I think as the years go on, he will drip further and further down these lists for people. And I think a lot of that is because of the way this title reign played out. And just the way people think about some of these wins, when if you go back and watch these fights, he won those Frankie Edgar fights. Like the Melendez one, the Melendez one is the bad one, but he won those Frankie Edgar fights. I will say this.

That was the biggest shocker to me in this whole thing, because I have historically personal story time from your boy. here. So the first time he fights Frankie Edgar, that's in February of 2012, right? So UFC 144, 20 wins the belt. We're going to talk about that fight. That was during the time when I was living in Vegas, trying my hand to being a professional gambler and sports betting a ton. I put a large sum of money on Frankie Edgar to win that fight. But because we were doing something else that night, couldn't like stay in and watch the fights. So I was just checking it I was checking updates on my phone, didn't have a great night in general. And then at the time, I was reading Sherdog, they were doing a live blog on it.

And Jordan Breen was doing the live blog and was like, Frank Yeager has won this fight, like, comfortably. And then the decision comes down. Vincent Henderson wins. I lose a crap ton of money. I'm obviously very salty. I go back and rewatch the fight. Maybe I have some biased glasses on. And I'm like, I don't understand Frank Edgar clearly won this fight.

And I've carried around that thought with me for a decade that he robbed Frankie Edgar of a lightweight title. And the only reason I wasn't mad about it was because Frankie robbed BJ of the lightweight title, Big BJ fit pin guys. It was like, serves you right, I guess. When I went back and rewatched it, you're absolutely right. Benson totally won that fight. You very much won those fights.

People just like Frankie more. And that ultimately ends up putting Frankie higher in these historical conversations as well. because Benson has a better resume than Frankie Edgar. As much as people don't want to hear that. It's very good, actually. It's not bad, but. Frankie was just Rocky. Like, he just gave us the Maynard Trilogy, which was incredible.

And, like, the damn we were good for Frankie is going to be an awesome episode. But, like, Benson by far has the better resume. Like, you just go down the list. Donald Soroni twice, Nate Diaz, Frankie Edgar, twice, Horace, Hory, Masvedal, Petricio, Gilbert Melendez, Josh Thompson, Clay Gweed, a Jim Miller, Jamie Varner, which was a really good win at the time. like that dude had won 18 to 20. Hustam Kabiloff, who was undefeated.

He was the next guy in the UFC at that point. I remember Benson texting me before that fight being like, who do you think I should fight? And I texted him back, anybody but the Russian. And dude still took it. And he still took it and he submitted that guy. Like WEC champ, UFC champ, UFC champ, tied for the lightweight title defenses,

two fights in the year. But the Russian. I was being honest with him. And he still took it like a crazy person. You know what? That's still good advice today. If you're a fighter listening to this, just let that be your mantra. Who should I fight?

Anybody but the Russian. It's probably going to work out more often than it's not going to work out for you. Dude, two fights of the year, back-to-back for MMA fighting, the Seroni won and Pettis won, both back-to-back, 2009, 2010, won for this website, fights of the year. He has wins over basically every major lightweight champion of his time for the most part, and that four-year stretch that Mike mentioned. He was the best in the world. Like, he just, he's not going to be thought of that way because some people are salty about a couple of these decisions that they went the other way.

So, peeling it all back, you would ask me my favorite Benson story. I would say probably, I think it was the first or second time I met him. I was super young journalists at the time, very much trying to figure myself out. This would be maybe the second time I met him because the first time I met him was for WEC53, which is the first MMA event I ever covered in this industry. And he was very, very nice to me and give me a bunch of things. of time and just generally was like pretty cool to me in a way that so we're clear that's a pretty sick event to be your first event ever covered i got real lucky i got a really good time to break in bro i left that event that night just being like i don't know what the hell i just watched but i need

to figure out how to do this for the rest of my life dude that's still a top 10 event all time like of all fighting events ever put on i remember exactly where i was i remember watching that whole thing is insane so good for you to be there i'm sure I'm sure we will probably talk about it more when we get to Mountain Rushmore, so I'm not going to dive into it right now, but yeah, it was good. But my favorite Benson story, second time I ever met him was I wanted to do a feature about the MMA Lab. And this was sort of one of my, I think it was actually my first time doing like a big in-depth, sort of long-formy type of story. I'd always grown up, you know, reading these things on Sports Illustrated and I wanted to do something similar. And I remember it was like a

week or two before a title fight. Maybe the Nate Dia's fight, maybe one of his title fights. And I would just kind of stop by the lab because it was right by my house. And I just, in my head, this was how it worked. I just walked in and I'd be like, hey, can I get some time with Benson? That type of thing. And like, I remember his PR manager reaming me. He called me and ream me and just you just showed up at the champs gym, unannounced, demanding time, all this and that. And he was just like incents that I dare. or do any of this. And I left feeling real bad about myself.

And then Benson called me back like an hour later. And he's just like, hey, you want to go get some lunch and we could do an interview? He was just like the coolest guy ever about it. He knew I was just some idiot, just some young kid. And he gave me a ton of time and a ton of access. And I ended up writing this feature and people enjoyed it. And it was just to me that always just stuck out to me of just like this is the dude at the top of the world, the number one in the world.

And we're just sitting outside of the Arrowhead Mall getting some whatever food. And like, you know, there are old ladies walking by who like recognize Benson, who is just like recognizing Benson, the UFC lightweight champion, this 70 year old woman who's just like so delighted to meet him. And he's just the most kind, you know, polite dude to this woman. It was just, it was a very bizarre surreal experience in the moment. And I just, it always stuck with me of like, man, that's somebody who like, that's somebody who gets it, right? Like that's somebody who never let it get to him too much, never let the fame get to him, the success

get to him and like really stay grounded in a way that I think. think is really admirable and we don't see a lot. Boom. See, and you're saying I put you on the spot. That's a phenomenal humanization of the former, you know, UFC Lightway champion. It's a perfect way. It's a perfect way to segue into let's dehumanize him. Let's just talk about the fights. It's not talk about the personality. Let's make our way to the awards. Before the awards, as always, give you a brief rundown. We've touched on a lot of it, but a brief rundown of his career in case you were not there for for the Bindo run.

Vincent Henderson's I'm a career began in 2006 in the Midwest Regional Circuit. He quickly strings together a bunch of wins, go 7 and 1, joins the WEC in 2009. The WEC, we've mentioned it. He becomes the interim lightweight champion and then the true lightweight champion by beating Donald Soroni and Jamie Varner, respectively. He ends up losing that title. He spends only six fights in the WC. Most of them are lightweight title fights.

He loses it to the bell to Anthony Pettison, in the final fight of the WC organization. That organization goes on to get folded into the UFC, obviously, where Benson's probably his best-known run occurs. Once he gets in the UFC, he just keeps winning. He ends up taking the lightweight title from Frankie Edgar. He has already been mentioned. We're just talking about it, and we're going to talk about it a little bit more, I'm sure.

But he becomes a lightweight champion, rematches, continues going on, ultimately loses that lightweight belt again to Anthony Pettis, this time in 2013. and that's where his career takes a bit of a shift. He sticks around the UFC for another couple of years, kind of taken fights between Lightway and Welterweight, before ultimately joining Bellator, and that's where, as Shaheen mentioned, he sort of spends the bulk of his career.

In Bellator, even though it's maybe not the most fondly remembered part of his career, he's fairly successful. Challenges for three world championships, the Welterweight Title I, the Lightweight Title twice, including his most recent and final fight against Usman Numergometov, earlier this month, Benson obviously goes on to lose that fight in the first round of the Bellator Lightweight Grand Prix

and hangs up the gloves. He's going to focus on other endeavors. All told, Benson, his overall career record is 30 and 12. He won seven performance bonuses in the UFC and W.C. He earned Fight of the Night Honors, or I'm sorry, Fight of the Year honors in 2009 and 2010, first fights with Donald Soroni and Anthony Pettish,

respectively, and he was the runner-up for Friday of the year in 2012. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Ciceroa of the FACTA that I just finished that denichie who energize so much. It's the ensemble. The form of standard and mini-regrouped, what abem. And the embellage, too beau, who is practically pre-to-donough.

And I know that I'd love these offrary, but I guard the Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm, I'm sure. The most ensemble, a gifto of these feses Cajor desks to show show us. Summer Fridays, Rare Beauty, way, Cifora collection, and other part of

Vite, procure you these formats, mini, regrouped for a better quality of price. On link on Sifora. com or in magazine. Unwrap holiday magic

at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point.

Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. All right. Now we're at it. We're at the awards. The big one, the first one, the one that,

the straw that stirs the drink for the whole damn show, the Mount Rushmore. You got four fights from this guy, and this was the category. Frankly, I'm the most interested in because I think you can go a lot of ways with this. There's a lot of opportunity. I suspect we will all have at least one, at least this first one that I'll just lead off with, because I'd be pretty surprised if it's not on there.

Donald Soroni, W.C. 43. It is the first Donald Soroni fight. It's for the interim WEC Lightweight Championship fight. fight of the year, as you mentioned earlier, Shaheen. Like, there aren't that many of those in the sport. The sport's been around 30-ish years. There are about 30 fights of the year to go. This was one of them.

I'm assuming from the head nods I've gotten, that's on both of your list, correct? It is indeed. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. It's the fight that gave him the nickname Bendo. Like, it's just surreal, even watching it today,

how he didn't submit to a bunch of those submissions. Dude, every part. of watching. I rewatched them this morning all the stuff just to make sure my Mount Rushmore was where I wanted it. I forgot how not bad because he wasn't doing poorly, but how

close Bendo was getting was to getting submitted like 40 times in the first two rounds. I mean, he kept transitioning from one, like into another submission. All right, I'm out of this. Now I'm into a triangle. Now he's attacking the arm.

Now he's attacking the leg. And it's you see it a lot of you around grappling a guy who knows a lot but can't quite get the finish and benson's got enough technical proficiency to get out but man that fight holds up today like if you should if that exact fight happened on a UFC card today it's still winning fight fight of the night we're still being like that was an incredible amount of skill shown in all phases of the game so i'm very glad to see that everyone has this next one for me uh this I had some weird ideas here. I think that this shes okay.

It's not the most fun one, but I'm taking Nate Diaz, him beating Nate Diaz, UFC on Fox something. It's in December 2012. Had it here for a couple of reasons. First, it's his best lightweight tattered offense. We talked about,

we mentioned it. This is the one that I don't think there's an ounce, there is not an ounce of controversy to this fight. He beat Nate Diaz pillar to post. At the end of the fight, Nate's even raising. You're getting Nate, think about this, people who joined MMA in the last five years. At the end of this fight, Nate Diaz raises this man's hand, pats him on the bat, and is like,

I lost to this dude in a fight where he was largely outgrappled. Like, that's not something that happens. But Nate knew what was up. Not the most entertaining fight to watch, but it does give us an iconic moment. This was the toothpick fight, is how I always. think about it. In the aftermath of it, he Bindo's raising his hands and he puts his tongue out in celebration

and there's a toothpick in his mouth and all hell broke loose. We're going to talk about the toothpick later, so we're going to need to get into it now. Does anybody else have Nate Diaz UFC on Fox 5? I had this one as well. I vacillated for basically up until we recorded this between

this and Frank Yerker 1. It felt like you had to have some representation from his UFC title run obviously and it to me it's either one or those one either one of those two uh and to me there's just too many people who are still sour about the frankie edgar one to throw it in there uh but this this is the most complete ufc title performance that like you said this is the one this is the one where there was no doubt it's just domination from pillar to post over a very good opponent Nate was on probably the best run of his career at that point at least like wins wise and also

it gave me one of my favorite moments of that era which is the sequence where benson's kind of the splits and Nate flips him off in the title fight. I actually have a painting of this from one of my night we face stories, Edward Chow, the great Edward Chow. It was an incredible sequence. I just love it. That's interesting because now I know, I'm almost certain I know one of your remaining two, which I don't have on here.

So we're going to have some dissension because I included the first Frankie fight. It was the last fight to make my list. It knocked off a fight. I'll talk about in the kind of honorable mentions. I included that this morning upon my rewatch of the Frankie fight, the first Frankie fight. Because like you, it's

controversial, people like Frank, we talked about that. When I rewatched it was like, this isn't a robbery. Henderson is so not a robbery. Hinderson's beating him up. Like Henderson is actively beating this man up, which was not how I recalled it at all obviously. And as I watch it, it's the fight that he wins

the UFC Lightweight title. It's probably the single most meaningful fight of his whole career in that regard. It's also a pretty fun fight. I have historically, I don't think Frankie's like the most fun fighter. He's had some big moments. The, the gray Maynard fights are fun because of how they unfolded. But like a lot of the way Frankie fights is not the most, he's not Justin Gehche, you know,

in that way. But that fight was really fun. There were a lot of changing tactics going on. It's still, again, I'm going to say this a lot. We're talking about a fight that happened a decade ago. And this is still high-level mixed martial arts today. Like the meta has changed in some regards, but if these two dudes are competing at this level of skill in modern-day lightweight division,

they're still, you know, top 15, top 20 guys. That doesn't change. So I included the first Frankie and Mike. I'm getting a head nod from you. So I think that you also have Frankie, Frankie Edgar at UFC 144. Is that correct? I do. And I can't really add much more to what you said because that first Frankie fight didn't

age well, but when you go back and watch it, like, he beat Frankie Edgar. There's no controversy. And I always thought there wasn't a lot of controversy with the first fight. The second one, I get why there was controversy, but the first one, I didn't understand why there was any controversy. I thought Benson clearly won that fight. So, and he won the belt. Yeah, people just loved Frankie, man. People just loved Frank. Yeah. And he won the UFC title. So while I have many honorable mentions, I could not leave that one out. I also want to make a note because this stuck out to me on the rewatch. Don't need to die.

Well, one, that upkick, I forgot all about that upkick happening, but Frankie was, Benson officially didn't get credited with a knockdown. That's for sure a knockdown. Frankie didn't go to a knee because he was, he went to a knee because he was not all there. That upkick was nasty. And I had forgotten all about it. I also forgot this little Jim. Just a shout out to the fantastic, the wonderful Mike Goldberg, who dropped this fantastic line on commentary.

Henderson, you know, his mom's full Korean, not only would he love to win the title, but doing it here in Japan would be extra special because Korea and Japan are the same country to Mike Goldberg. That is a dead direct quote. I was watching this fight. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you're going to say that. I was watching this fight and he and Rogan are talking all about it being in Saitama and how the crowd's so quiet and this is weird. And then he just, Henderson's mom's full Korean, he'd love to win this fight here in Japan.

And I'm just like, I can't believe this guy. I cannot believe this man. Kept his job after that. Wow. Shouts for that. And then I don't, I'm not sure you guys are going to have this one based on how the rest of it's unfolding. But for me, I'm rounding it out with Brandon Thatch. It's not at us.

Oh, Shaheen's on board. I'm with you. I'm with you. The Thatch one I went with for a couple of reasons, mostly because it's a bit of a deep cut in that if you were not there, this fight means nothing to you if you weren't like into it. But Brandon Thatch had a moment where we all thought he was the future. This guy came in like a buzz saw at Welterweight. Bindo's lost two in a row, including losing to Soroni, who he'd obviously beaten twice before. he's moving up in welterweight and he was a big lightweight but thought he was going to be

undersized and he's facing this this killer the guy who's supposed to be a future title challenger and he just demolishes him man like that he Brandon Thatch's career never recovered from benson henderson which isn't something you can say about a lot of the guys bendo fought frankly like this is the one career he really actually ruined uh and it was just a consummate incredible performance where we're like oh benson henderson can now like also be a legitimate welterweight and he ends up challenging for the welterweight belter welterweight championship a couple years later so thatch rounded mine out sheen you're agreeing do you have anything else to say on thatch and then you can transition right into your fourth because i believe we share three yeah i think the thatch one is the

one that if you weren't there in the moment this makes no sense to you right like you're looking at a Wikipedia page, that just looks like some regular win. Like, why would this matter? This was such an important time for Benson's career, just generally, right? Like, he's post-UFC title. The Soroni fight that he had just lost, he really should have won. That was, people talk about Benson getting robberies. That was a robbery against Benson.

He very much beat Donald in that fight, and Donald would tell you that. And so this one, going into it, this was almost like a maker break fight for Benson. He takes it on short notice. And it was David versus Goliath. Like Benson is so much smaller than Brandon Thash. He looks noticeably small. Brandon Thatch was huge. Brandon Thatch was huge.

And there was a true Brandon Thatch moment going on in MMA right at that point in time. Like that dude was two fights into his UFC career. And both of them were first round knockouts. And he just looked like the truth. An obliterated too. Like he was buzz sawing dudes. It was when Benson took this fight, I was like, this is the worst decision you could have possibly made. Right, because it's that classic thing.

It's Michael Bisbing fighting Kelvin Gastilum right after losing his title. Like, you're just reeling, your career is reeling. And you're just, Benson, at that point, was just trying to rifle through fights because he wanted to get to free agency. And he was just like, this is the wrong way to go about it, man. Like, you're just about to get trucked by this giant, gigantic man. And then to watch him slowly just take the life from this dude and, you know, sort of out, out, out, waded out, and then really take charge.

I think, what was that, that fourth round? Both around. Unbelievable viewing experience. And it was almost like a heroic effort when you take the get David versus Goliath dynamic. I love this fight forever. It's one of my low-key, like, favorite fights of all time. I think this has to be on there for best. It's honestly one of the first fights I think of when I think of Benson Henderson

because just all of what was going on at the time. Brandon Thatch never won again, by the way. He was 11 and 1 coming into this fight. Literally never won a fight after he fought Vincent Henderson. He was like a 2 to 1 favorite. this like it was he was supposed to win this fight and and moat it down so chaheen you have one open spot left in your mount rushmore and i am certain i know what it is but i'll let you do the honors because i intentioned left this fight off but i i struggled with the decision it has to be anthony

peddice it has to be right like sell me on it because the reason i left it off is because he lost obviously it was a fight of the year it's one of the most important fights in that era of fighting. One of my favorite fights, I've rewatched that fight tons of times and it still holds up. But him losing ultimately made me leave it off. Tell me why it didn't for you. To me, it's too important to leave off because there's a lot of elements that would like going into this fight, right? Like this was the final fight of a promotion that is just a cult classic.

It would be loved promotion, like the blue cage, blue gloves. Like, that means something to a lot of people who are around back then, the WEC. And also, it was a, it was a final showcase of what we ultimately learned, which was, you know, the validation that Benson Henderson represented him, Donald and Anthony, all that, that triumvirate represented a real validation that, like, there is still legitimate talent in this post-pride era outside of the UFC. Like, this was strike force before strike force type of thing of when all the strike force guys came in and just won belts really quickly.

Like when WEC was going on, people, I don't say, I wouldn't say crapped on it, but people very much viewed it as a B-tier league when it came to the UFC. Meanwhile, three of the best lightweights in the world were sitting here at the top of this division. And this was the ultimate showcase of this, because this was final show, final fight, and they put on just the masterpiece of all masterpieces, fight of the year. And it's like an all-time action fight. Like, rewatching this fight for this program was such a fun experience because you forget how, like, we have so much experience now with Anthony and Benson both that you forget just how sublime they were as viewing experiences in their younger days.

The pace that young Benson puts on is outrageous. That dude was a marauder out there. Young Anthony just willing to try anything and do anything and just pull out moves that you wouldn't even imagine. it's just pure theater, man. Also, I have to say, I don't know that there's going to be another point in this podcast when anybody can mention this. All-time performance in the broadcast booth by Stefan Bonner. Dude, he did, Stefan Bonner.

He did such a good job. Unbelievable. RIP, rest of peace, Stefan Bonner, but I shockingly good as you go back and rewatched. If I like, you had some affinity for this. That dude was amped. He was amped from the. moment that fight started. You just hear how excited he was. No one could have called that moment better than Stefan Bonner.

That's literally the best answer to woe to being that role. He ran off the wall like a ninja. I can't believe he landed that. It's like you vocalized my exact thoughts, Stefan Bonner. Well done. One of the greatest calls in MMA history. I will stand that until my death. literally the last 70 seconds of the fight, Bonner is not even calling the fight anymore. He's still just kind of freaking out about the showtime game. It's still the coolest thing I've ever seen in mixed martial arts. It's a legendary call.

It's amazing. And just, again, the scrambles in this fight, just the pure entertainment factor of this fight, the topsy-turvy nature of it going back and forth. And then for Anthony to pull, I'm sure one day we'll do a damn episode on Anthony. For sure. And that's going to be a fun one. for Anthony to pull that out in the final minute of the final round of the final fight for this promotion is just like that is got to be a top what three or five balliest move ever in MMA history to pull that out in that exact moment because that fight was still up for grabs that fact that in the last minute if I was the only downside to that at all and it's the minors quibble is it didn't just knock him out to win it.

Benson Henderson too tough to go down from that. But yeah, it's, to me, it's the coolest thing that's ever happened in the sport. It's just the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's the single most famous non-UFC highlight in MMA history. Undeniably, true. Undeniably. I think most people think it knocked out Benson. Oh, that's a hundred percent.

Even the UFC video package, when they're doing the Pettis rematch is pointedly doesn't say that he wins a decision. It's like that he says, and the final minute, he jumps off the cage and kicks him and Benson Henderson loses the title. And it's like, they don't show anything after the kick and they are intentionally just crafting the narrative.

The Bettis knocked him out. But Bindo is too tough for that. Mike, I'm assuming that we've got two of yours, right? We've got Frankie one. We've got Donald Seroni, two great ones. I'm assuming this one is also on your list

than the original Showtime kick that fight. I didn't put it on my list. It's not. Oh, wow. So you've got two open slots. I am interested to see where we're going here then, Mike. So like I said before we hit record, this is, this is tough.

And I wanted to be like a little bit different here. And obviously Seroni getting there, I had to put them on. I had to put the Frankie UFC title win on there. This is like right on to the outside, but I wanted to go a little bit different. So Jehine mentioned it earlier. The Jamie Varner win makes my list. And the reason... That's a good win.

The reason mostly why it makes my list, not just because he unified the belts, it encapsulates who Benson Henderson was during that time. And even, like when I really started covering the sport, who Benson Henderson continued to be as a fighter for a long time until that door started to close on him. Benson Henderson was never out of a fight. Ever.

You never watched a Benson, Henderson fight, no matter how bad it got for the most part, and thought, this dude is dunzo. He's done done. He's like, he could always pull it out. And the Jamie Barner fight, that fight was not going well for him. He lost the first two rounds. It was not looking good. Varner was feeling himself.

And then Varner makes one mistake, snatches on the gilly, taps him, fight over. Like, perfect Benson win, unifies the belt. It was just such a cool moment because that fight was not going well for him. It was not going well. I was getting boxed up. It was not a great performance. I was stunned watching it. Even watching it back, I was like, man, I didn't realize the first two rounds were,

were like not completely one side of, but Varner was up 2018 on pretty much everybody's scorecard universally. And then one second, boom. Yeah, he was really good. And that was a really good win. It was a really good win. And Varner is a guy who doesn't get enough credit for the time. So I put that in there. Obviously, those other ones that you mentioned, Thatch,

was honorable mention, Nate was honorable mentioned. The showtime kick is probably like 4B for me. I ultimately went on with one that probably doesn't make sense, but the meaning behind it is bigger than the actual victory. And I'm going with the Jorge Mazadal fight. I'm going with the Jorge Mazadal fight. Interesting. Because he became a free agent.

He bet on himself, follows up the fatch win with the main event win over Mazadol, gets it done. and then he changed the business by becoming a free agent and actually leaving the promotion as at least in most people's eyes, a high-level, high-tier fighter, like a championship-level commodity. Now, there were been other fighters at the time who had mentioned free agency, like Al Jemaine Sterling at the time mentioned it, ultimately re-signed with the UFC, where McDonald was talking a lot about free agency, he went to Bell Tour later.

But when Benson Henderson went on his social media page and announced that he went to Bellator. That was a friggin' game changer. Free agency became a massive thing. This was just like a blip on the radar when things are being talked about. But when he actually made the decision to beat feet to go to Bellator where he spent the rest of his career, that was a massive moment. And it changed the business. It changed the business as a fighter that the grass is green or outside of the UFC. No matter how good or bad you are, you can go somewhere else and still have a very successful career. And I remember the moment when I found out that Benson Henderson was signed with Bellatar. I was like, holy crap. I was like, what a gutsy move right there. Change the game.

And if he loses that fight to Mazda, that was a close competitive fight, it doesn't have the impact that it has. And that was just a massive moment, not just for him, but for the sport, it changed everything. And now free, it was just a, that free agency ball that Benson Henderson started with was just a little tiny pebble. And then he turned into a blizzard and he rolled that pebble downhill and now free agency and fighting out your contracts and betting on yourself. It's a whole different ballgame now. It changed the game.

And I don't think he gets enough credit for that. So lose that Mazadal fight. That moment isn't as big as it is. But he winning that Mazadal fight made that moment gigantic and it changed everything. I love that. That is a very different take. and not one that I would have come to at all. So I love that.

I will also note, as we put a bow on this particular category, interesting that despite what we mentioned earlier, none of us have a Bellator fight. I almost, I almost, I didn't do it. I was like, this is way too reachy. I had a number five that was a Bellator fight. I had one that I was thinking about. I almost went with the Islamamata fight because no one thought he was going to win that fight.

No one thought he's going to win and the judges got it right. Everyone wrote him off before that fight. He was not supposed to win that fight. See, I had the Peter Quilly was the one that just missed in part because I kind of wanted to have a Belator fight on. And it's a good performance.

Queeley's not like the greatest fighter in the world, but Benson wins that fight, wins every round of that fight, realistically. And it just delivers a good performance and gets himself one last shot at a world championship. before he in. So, uh,

interesting that you guys both went Pamadov. I totally get the reasoning. Uh, but yeah, it's very, very odd. That not odd, it makes sense.

But again, part of the interesting story of Benson, the majority of his career was in Bellator, where he three times fought for a world championship. And yet none of the, his fights there made arm out Rushmore's. The Chandler fight is exceptional. It's a great fight.

You go back to watch a handler fight. He is one score to caught off and winning that. Bellator title from Chandler and that is a great fight. It's, I mean, it is and it's super. What a weird, weird career he's had. All right, that's the big category. Now time for the fun ones. You know where it is.

We start here after we do the Mount Rushmore. We've done the good. Let's talk about the bad. I have one answer for this category. It is the I'm not impressed by your performance award. It goes to the career low for Benson. for me, this was the easiest one to pick. No question asked.

UFC 164, the rematch with Anthony Pettis. Because part of his career, part of the dynamic that's interesting, is usually this category is a little tougher because we're talking about guy, like Shogun had a lot of tough scenes after his peak run, you know, and it's finding the one that you think is the worst. Benson lost more than he, you know, then maybe you would have wanted to see as his career went on,

but he was still in fights. He was losing competitive split decisions for world championships. Didn't have the same drop off, but the Pettus rematch, this was the fight of the year. We went on at length about it just a minute ago. This was supposed to be a tremendous fight. And instead, Anthony Pettus just kind of rolled right on over him.

Just kicked him in the body a bunch and then snatched up an arm bar. Benson left his arm on the mat. to me, in a career that doesn't have a lot of super ugly losses, this one is the one that's the most like, oh, you just didn't even belong in the cage that night against the guy you were facing. So that's where I'm at. Mike, let's go right back to you. Where are you at for the I'm not impressed by your performance? I did not pick that one. I thought about it, but I did not pick that one. And it's funny kind of going back to some of the old things we talked about because Shaheen mentions that he covered WAC 53 is the first card he ever covered live.

The one I'm picking is the first card I ever covered live, which was Bellator 153. It was the Bellator debut of Benson Henderson, and he fought Andre Koreshov. And I was 10 feet away from that fight. First event I had ever covered, it was at the scenic Bohiguan Sun Arena in unbelievable Uncassville, Connecticut. it and Benson just got run by Andre Koreshkov. He had nothing for the man. And I mean nothing. And he got his ass beat for five rounds.

He took a lot of damage in that fight. And to me, even though technically, yeah, he was up a weight class from where he made his hay at 155, that was kind of the moment. And I talked earlier about how there were times where he just felt like Benson Henderson was never out of a fight. That was like the first time where I was just like, all right. he's on the back nine. Like he's on the back nine.

Like he could still win fights. But the days of him being like an elite world champion fighter outside of the UFC, I just don't see it happening. I think the confidence that I had that he could beat a lot of higher level guys. But being there and just watching that fight 10 feet away from me, it was just the moment where it clicked. Like this guy could be a top five lightweight of all time. He'll definitely win fights.

It's not like he's just going to get run and lose nine. a row but I just don't know if he's beating the crem de la crem anymore or even like a step or two below and he had some good performances he's had some we mentioned the mobinoff win he's had some like pretty pretty good wins but that fight in particular I was just like damn he just got beat he got the hell beat out of him for 25 minutes behind your koreshkov so yeah I'll trade you first m mhm a event to cover shaheen I'll trade you because that was that that was that was a tough one but that's The Koreshkov fight was the one. I was like, oh, wow.

He's not the same dude anymore. It's a great choice. Shaheen, where are we at? Yeah, I went with Mike on this one. I picked the Koreshkov one because also there's an element there that we haven't mentioned, which just the fight itself, first of all, Benson was so much smaller than Andre Koreshkov. Benchon was never a welterweight.

He was never meant to be a welterweight. Yeah, he only had three welterweight fights. The Thatch won the Koreshkov and then Hore Mastrad, who also was a lightweight. No, he fought Jason Jackson at Welterweight too at some point and lost that as well. He's just not a Welter. I don't remember that fight happening. So, okay.

No, there you go. That's his, that's Bellator in a nutshell. It's just, he's not, he's not as big as those guys. Like, in a weird way, the Thatch win, as incredible as it was, was kind of one of the worst things to happen to his career because then he was convinced for a couple years that he could have a good run at Welterweight. And he was just those dudes were so much bigger than him. But one element of the Koreshkov fight that people overlook or, or,

forgeter. I think a lot of people don't know is Benson had a torn ACL. And then Benson still had a torn ACL for years after that. Benson fought pretty much the first half of his Bellator career with a torn ACL and was not himself for like the majority of it until finally like his wife and his gymmates and people around him were just like, you need to get this fixed, dude. Like you're not, this is, people have an incorrect perception of who you are right now because you are just fighting at like half speed this entire time. And so finally he gets it fixed and then he went on a little bit of a run there in Belator. But for like the first half of his Belter career, dude was going in there with one leg just because he was too stubborn and he just thought he could always win and he just had that

supreme confidence in himself. So that to me, I picked the Koreshkov one for all the reasons Mike said, but also just because it started this weird path that I think derailed. We go back to why people view him differently than they should maybe. That's one of the reasons. He goes to Belator and then he loses a bunch of fights real quick in rapid succession and people were just maybe he was never good. He, you know,

you gift decisions, whatever. And it's just like, it's not, it's not the case, but people outside don't, you know, if you were going in there with a tourneousel,

it's your decision. Like, you're the one doing this to yourself. He was a massive favorite in that fight too. He was like a minus three, 300 or minus 350 favor in that fight too. Benson was crazy, right?

Jeez, that is insane. You know what? I'm going to say, stand corrected. I'm going to audible mind. I'm going to agree. You guys have sold me that Kreshkov is the correct answer here.

Which moves us to our next category. It's a classic. It's a favorite. It's where Shaheen Al-Shadi has traditionally stood out. I'll be impressed if you have something here because I tried to dive deep and it was a tough one. It's the who the fuck is that guy award for the weirdest or most surprising opponent a fighter has faced. Shaheen, I'm going to cede the floor to you because I could not find a lot of good answers here. I tried.

I tried so hard. I tried to find something worthwhile on this. There's not a lot there. There's not a lot of weird side roads you can take. I landed with two that weren't really too weird. I think Chad Klingensmith is one of them. That is someone who knocked out Benson in what seems to be Benson's only amateur match on record at least. I'm not sure I've never asked him about this.

but it's the one that's like on record and dude knocked out Benson Henderson. And so that's got to just be weird for Chad Klingensmith. It's a great name. You got this win over this guy who a few years later is winning titles in all these organizations and you never really went anywhere. That's got to be weird. And I always think about like when we talk about these type of conversations, I always think about a guy like Rocky Johnson.

Oh, that's the correct answer. Who goes out there submits Benson in 41 seconds very early in both their careers. And then four to five years later, this dude is still bouncing around on the regional scene. And Benson's out here winning WEC and UFC titles. And it's just got to be the strangest thing to be sitting there amongst your friends of like, I beat that guy. I'm better than that guy. I should have all these opportunities, that type of thing.

I always just wonder what those gentlemen are always thinking in that moment in time. Also, Rocky Johnson owns a first round submission over noted MMA manager, Ali Abdela Aziz. So there you go. Mike, do you have anything to add? Because it appears that Rocky Johnson is your choice. It's the answer. I mean, first of all, the name just opens eyeballs. Rocky Johnson just from pro wrestling fame and the rock and his dad and all that stuff.

And just, I mean, just looking at Rocky Johnson's career is just fascinating as hell. Like the Ali win is just, it pops your eyes for sure. This dude fought Benson Henderson, Josh Thompson, Leonard Garcia, and Josh Emmett. And Ali Abdulaziz throughout his long career, which is incredible. That is. It's just incredible. And, yeah, he beat Benson Henderson. He beat Ali.

I don't know if he beat Leonard Garcia or not, but he lost to both Josh's. It just seemed to be the obvious answer. Shaheen, get on a Rocky Johnson, you know, where are they now? Because I will read the hell out of that. You and two other people were. Also, his nickname is Rock Monster. Rocky Rock Monster. Fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic. I love that. Here I have three options that I and none of them of you've included. One of them is personal to me so there won't be Diego Sariva who doesn't really matter in any regard except for it jumped out to me because he owns a gym in Atlanta and I have seen that around. And so when I'm going through Benson's, I'm like, why do I know that name? Like, oh, he's a coach here in Atlanta. So that one jumped out to me personally. The other two, shouts to Alan Williams first.

Oh, I had that circle. Alan Williams is my favorite kind of. You talked about, you know, Shaheen, about being the guy who tells your friends I beat that dude. Alan Williams is a guy I would love to have a beer with. Five fights, lost all five of them. His first was in hook and shoot in 97, which is, mind-blowing. Then he was like, I'm done with this,

comes back four years later, loses twice in 2001, including one of those fights to an O-N-4 fighter, a guy who ends up with his final career tally at 520, and Alan Williams is still not like, I don't, this isn't my back,

I just shouldn't do this. So after a five-year hiatus, comes back again, loses, and then a year later is like, let me fight that 1-0 Benson-Henderson guy. Maybe he's the guy. He'll beat. Ends his career, O'N 5.

Alan Williams. If you're out there, if you're a listener, shoot me a text. I would love to have a beer with you just to understand your story. And the other one, I just mentioned this because I find it incredibly fun when things like this happen. I found Brian Corley, who was one of Benson's like first five opponents.

He has a LinkedIn. It's out there. He's a sales rep. in the Midwest. And like, it's definitely the same Brian Corley, a guy who apparently

fought in Bellator in 2014 because MMA is an incredibly weird sport. So now we've gone down to who are these weird guys, Benson fought. And I could add Jason Jackson because until you mentioned it, Sheen,

didn't realize that fight. Fight happened. Again, I've been doing a deep dive on Benson's career and somehow that one just right over the head. That was a, Jason Jackson the Jason Jackson-y fight.

Oh, I'm confident I don't remember a single second of that fight and I know exactly what it played. I know exactly how that fight went. 30, 27, exactly what you think it's going to be. The next award, a relatively new one. I think we included it. I think we brought it into the stage last episode. The Randolplex Award for the best single highlight of a fighter's career.

Also a really tricky one, because as good as Benson is, doesn't have a ton of huge highlights for me. I want Donald Serroney the rematch at WC. 48. The guillotine jumps onto it in transition, and it is a nasty one. And that's sort of the best, like the best highlight is obviously him getting kicked in the face from the Showtime kick,

but that didn't feel right for me to put that here. So I went with the guillotine over Donald Seroni. Mike, what about you? I went with the Showtime kick. Wow, the disrespect. No, because, and here's why. It's because he ate it for lunch. Like, he just ate it and kept fighting.

And like we talked about earlier, most people see that clip. And even the UFC contextualized it as the lousy end of the fight. He got deaded, but no, he didn't. And, you know, it was the moment where the fight was definitely going to Pettus, but he ate it and survived the round. And the incredible fight and the incredible legacy of the WEC lightweight division carried on in the UFC. a lot because of that moment. And I hate to pick it, but it's almost like I can't not pick it.

But I guess more of the positive note, like the Soroni submission win is obviously a good one. And you mentioned Shaheen, the Rusum Kabulov submission win. That's a super underrated one because that man wasn't finishing fights for a long time right there. Four years plus was the last time he had gotten a finish in a fight. And then he goes out and submits Kabulov. So yeah, just his ability, like, just his ability to just be durable and continue to fight no matter what happens. That's why I picked the showtime kick. But I mean, always on the wrong end of it, but there was such a pivotal moment in the sport.

He just happened to be a part of it. And it didn't finish him when I would have finished pretty much every other 55 are on the planet at the time. I love the spin zone, if nothing else. One question I've always had about the show time kick, just like as a thought exercise, is because if you frame it within the context of the time period, that's sort of the tail end. That's like the very end

of those halicon days before the internet sort of ruined the world and changed just how our job works, how all of this works. I truly always have wondered how the internet would have handled

the showtime kick. If that happens in 2023 in a pivotal moment like that, like whatever, final bellator fight of all time or whatever you, however you want to frame it, right?

like that I wonder if that's like a masvidal ascran-esque type of five seconds moment of just like does Anthony Pedersent to the UFC at that point as a genuine, genuine superstar? I think for sure. I mean, this was back at this was on the sports center top 10. It was number two. I'll never forget it because that thing being number two, it was behind like a Jason kid dunk or something in, it wasn't Jason kid. It was behind a dunk. And I remember waking up and watching SportsCenter being like,

this has to be on SportsC Center. This is the most unbelievable thing. And it was number two. And that's insane that it was only number two, but also at the time, MMA didn't make Sports Center. That's not a thing. The UFC wasn't in bed with the SBA.

Not non-UFC. Yeah, exactly. So there was no reason that would be on SportsCenter. So if it did that, even as insane as it was that was two, there's like that thing's viral to the tic-toks of that being memed just yeah through the roof the amount of fan edits and whatever that you would see on tic-tok instagram we never got a great fan edit of that like we talked in the shogun episode about the skateboard fan edit being one of the greatest fan edits if not the greatest in all of mma history how did nobody give us something here

from this where's like the anthony pettits with a ninja outfit getting doing like a some anime type of like push type of thing like exactly somebody if you're listening to this and you have that a technical ability or know how tweet me with it do it tweet me with it will signal boost you I don't care if it's a decade late

it's never too late to party that's my that's my motto Shaheen what about you on the Randallplex award this was tough because as you said he did there aren't a lot of just popping off the screen type of highlights it's more of just overall performance.

I vacillated. I had the Frankie Edgar upkick. That's a really good one. Up kicks ever, especially considering the context of a title fight, Frankie Edgar dominant champion. I had that and also the Jamie Varner

power guillotine that that man put on because he jumped on that thing and it put all of his weight on it and it looked like he nearly popped Jamie Varner's head clean off. And Jamie Varner was a real person at that point. Like he was really going through a moment.

Like he was one of the best in just dominating that division for a while at that point. So I went between those two. I can't disagree in general. And it's going to lead us to our next award and it's actually going to line up perfectly because the Mirko Krokop left leg cemetery award, if you could take one part of the fighter's game to create a fighter, what would it be? And for me, I think you could go a couple of ways. I went with the gilly.

Man has like five or six guillotine submits. mission wins in his career. And they were all nasty. Whenever he got him, that was a go-to weapon for him. So I went with guillotine. Shaheen, let's go right back to you. What are you for the Mirko Krocop Left Leg Cemetery ward? That's tough.

Again, I'm between two on this. And one is maybe more useful than the other, but I think one is more applicable generally. I would go the pace, the furious pace that young Benson fought at, which was just a it was Colby Covington-esque, but before Colby, right? Like, it was just, dude was in your face from the moment that fight started until the moment it was over in his level of toughness and just grit. He was not going to, it was not going to be an easy night. Like, maybe you'll beat him.

You're not going to have fun doing it, and you're going to remember it for the rest of your life. Like, it was going to be the hardest thing that you had ever done. So I was with that, but also the gumbiness, like just the bendiness. Like the supernatural power to not get submitted in things. in positions where you very much should get submitted. Like that, there was a reason he was called Bendo.

Like he hated that nickname always, but it just never made sense, like watching these fights, how this man was escaping these positions, which frankly, to me, we were talking about earlier, the Anthony Pettus win, the second one,

the UFC title win. To me, that's one of the more impressive wins ever just because of the fact that the dude submits Benson in the first round. Like that is, no one's doing that, right?

Like even in the latter stages of his Bellator career, no one was submitting Benson like that, which again, might have made the last fight, even more impressive to me, the Usman fight. So I went between those two, the pace and the bendiness. Okay, Mike, what about you? If you're taking a part of his game to make a fighter, what are you taken from Bendo?

Probably what I said earlier, his ability to never be out of a fight when he was on his run. Like, no matter how far the chips were down, you would watch a Benson-Henerson fight and still feel like he could still come up with something to win. And I guess that has to go with like the durability and the pace and just the calculate, just how calculated and chaotic he could be at times. But I think just for a long time, you just never felt like he was out of a fight. You just never felt he was out of a fight. He could always come through in some weird way.

And if he did, it wouldn't surprise you at all. So I think just that the surprise factor and his just ability to to never get down, like down, when the chips were against him. I think that that's a really tough skill. that not a lot of fighters, especially from a mental aspect, can carry with them for long periods of time. But Benson was able to do it for many, many, many years at a very high level. Alligate their blood. Can't kill him.

Now we're on to what's going to be the shortest category because frankly, there is. What? What was yours? Oh, I said the gilly. Oh, the gillie. Give me the guillotine. Like, he's five or six of his career and some of his best highlights are the gilly. Now we're going on to the next category.

It's going to be, I think, the shortest category in the history of this show, because I accept only one answer. If you have offered another one, I don't know what we're even doing here. It's the Fador Sweater of Absolute Victory Award. It's for one piece of memorabilia. The only answer is the toothpick. And if you don't agree, speak now because I cannot accept an answer that isn't the toothpick. Mike, Shaheen is obviously on board. Are you also on board with the tooth pick?

I am, but I do have an honorable mention. Okay. I'll take honorable mentions. It's the WEC interim title he won against Donald Seroni. Well, you're never going to go wrong with a WEC belt. That just sort of speaks to the heart right there. Because that fight is just the best. It's such a great fight.

It's a really good fight. It's incredibly incredibly well. It's a really good fight. But the toothpick is the answer. I still can't believe that that's a thing. It still blows my mind. that a professional fist fighter fall with a toothpick during a fight and then apparently did it a bunch, absolutely not.

Not only during a fight, but during the chaotic fights that he's having at that point, right? Like, that's the thing like, it's putting in your- Yeah, fights where like there's a lot of moments where you probably don't understand what's going on. Scambles, rolls, getting knocked down, different crazy submissions. How are you doing this with the toothpick, dude? How do you have a toothpick in your mouth that hasn't stuck through your cheek at, any point during this. That's the killer to me. As we talk about the small margins, how one judge's scorecard could have made him a Bellator lightweight champion as well, or, you know, the narrow split

decisions, wins and losses either way. And just adding a totally additional and unnecessary piece of chaos, be like, at any point in time, you can get punched in the cheek and this could just shove out your face and the fight's over because the referee will notice that you have a foreign object sticking out of your face and they will stop the bout and he's just like yeah that's cool we're good so uh that's why they call them smooth just unbelievable now we're going to go to a category which i think has some legs to it we might get into the weeds a little bit here the international player haters ball it's where we nitpick the fighter's career we we talk about the downsides we've alluded to some of them i have two topics here that i'd like to discuss one's a little more serious one's a little more

fun. The more serious one that we've kind of touched on, how do we feel about the fact that he went to so many split decisions in his career? I believe my count is eight. Wins and losses and several of the controversial things were as champion. Do we think that plays negatively on his game overall? Was that baked into the pie with Benson Henderson is my question? Was the way he fought just led itself to that? Or did he just get a bad role of the dice? on judges. I mean, I think, go for it. No, I just think, you know, when you have fights like that and you're on the right

side of them and it happens multiple times in a row, you kind of feel like you can't lose no matter how you feel. So, I mean, there might be just like a psychological aspect to that. Because you could tell like a lot of the mayhem went away and things became a little more calculated as, you know, those stages of his career. kind of came on. Still obviously very dangerous and still could tap into that mayhem side, but once you realize that, you know, even if I don't have my best, I'm still going to win because the judges have my back. Like maybe there's a psychological aspect to that that I always

thought was kind of fascinating with Benson. But I know it's not like he never gave his 100%, but at the end of the day, when you're the champion and you're in big fights, your job is to win and take as little damage as possible. And, you know, he didn't accomplish that all the time. But sometimes if you're winning these splities, even if you don't feel like you have your best night, that could just still be enough as long as you get to the final bell. So again, it was always like a psychological thing for me, something I would love to like ask Benson about now that he, when he reflects on his career about some of those performances that went to splities.

I do think he's, I think he's a difficult man to judge. I think the way in which he approaches fights, and in particular that pace and sort of just the volume, but just again, just whatever the way he approaches these fights, it's very, very difficult to view them as a judging experience and get the full perspective of it. Because we've all sat cage side for fights. Sitting cage side and watching a Benson fight is a completely different experience than watching it on television because that man is just moving a thousand miles an hour, Clay Guita style the whole entire way through.

And I think that is something that when you're right next to it, it's overwhelming in a strange sense. Like it's really difficult to parse what's effective here, what's not effective. And also I do think a lot of those split decisions, especially during the title rain era and sort of that later UFC era, came in a very weird time for judging as a whole in MMA when we were trying to figure out what matters in a fight here. And it was sort of the end of lay and praise going to work for you. Like we were sort of figuring out that damage is the all encapsulating thing.

And that's what should matter most. and just that sort of thing. It kind of the intersection of his difficult style and just, again, what a weird moment it was for MMA judging, I think, lended itself to a lot of those different fights. But also some of his dance partners, right? Like Frank Yeager, same type of thing. Hard guy to judge.

High pace, a lot of volume. Same thing with Gilbert Melendez. Like, a lot of these fights would just play into this, if you ran them back 20 times out of 20, they're going to be sort of these toss-up type of fights. I think that's just, you look at some of the best lightweights. That was their style at that moment. I accept this answer.

Now on to the thing that I really wanted to talk about here. This has bothered me his entire career. And something you said earlier, Shaheen, stuck resonated with me. He hated the nickname Bendo. You know why he had the nickname Bendo? Because his nickname is not a bad nickname. Smooth is a good nickname,

firmly on board with Smooth. There's no reason for it to attach and resonate with you if you're a Benson Henderson fan. because it's not illiterative, it's nothing out there, and Bindo rolls off the tongue. And the way he could have avoided this, the way people could have looked at him and said, smooth, smooth Benson,

is if he came out to smooth the certified banger by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas, which I can hear in my head right now, and it gets the hips wiggling, because it's a banger. And instead, he comes out to awesome God by R. Swift, his whole career, And so there's no reason for me to look at him and be like smooth. I just think Bindo, because it's a fun thing to say.

It killed me his whole career. If you're going to have the name smooth, you should come out to smooth by Carlos Santana. More fighters should come out to Carlos Santana. Frankly, it's an underserved market in the fight game. That's my biggest issue with his whole career, guys. Just being honest. So are you saying that when- No notes?

Are you saying that Maria Henderson should come out to Maria Maria from now on? Also featuring Santana? Yes, absolutely. The more Carlos Santana in FightSport, the better we all are. It's all I'm saying, guys. Shout out to the product, GMB, who never gets enough credit for that song. 10 out of 10, A plus, no, no. Do you guys have anything for the player haters ball that we haven't talked about?

I mean, it's the decisions. That's ultimately what it is, right? It's the split decisions. And I think, again, that colors incorrectly and unfairly the way certain people will perceive even historically, especially as time moves on. Okay. I mean, I'll say one more thing. To me, it's like one of the things that people loved about Benson,

but it was probably a detriment to his career in a lot of ways. Being too game to take certain fights just because, oh, yeah, I just want to take fights. Flip-flopping with the weight classes, he probably made some mistakes along the way. Some worked out, like the Brandon Thatch win, but the Crashko fight was a terrible mistake. Should have never taken that fight. And there were others at 170. You shouldn't have taken. and Jason Jackson won.

And a lot of times, they're just, well, this is what Bellator offered me, and I'm never going to say no to a fight. And perhaps he was just maybe two game down the stretch and took some matchups that he probably shouldn't have taken with the name that he had. But other than that,

I like both of yours. Also, if we're nitpicking, if we're nitpicking, this bothered me his entire career, and I've mentioned this to him, is there just not a better way to hold your hair back? Right?

Like, what are we, doing here, really? There's got to be some better hair containment situation than what you have going on because if you just, if someone, I will never do this, but if someone just sat and watched

all of his prime fights and tallied the amount of hair swipes that he had, he had to have like five hair swipes per minute. Like his HSPM has to be just off the charts compared to anybody else. And you, that's so much wasted time that you could have been doing other things

in the cage. One, It looks cool. Two, I will say in his defense, for the rematch with Pettis, he, like, had it. He did braids, and he immediately got run over. So maybe he was like, I'm coming into this very serious. I lost this guy before. Let's do the braid. So I don't have the HSPM going on here.

Love this acronym, by the way. We need to bring him involved more in the sport. And he immediately gets run over and is like, can't do it. We can't do that again. Maybe he's superstitious. You can ask him about it. Ask him if that's why he stopped. doing the braids.

But like, hey, no hate. Mike and I out here representing Bald Brothers forever. One of the great mains in MMA history of this man, and he really kept that thing alive. He's in his late 30s now, and that thing is just an amazing still head of hair. Just contain it better, Benson.

Come on. There had to be away. Fantastic. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton cross-training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans,

real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go.

Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts, so you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags.

Designer. Handpicked the finest sweaters from the rest. Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. Rushes too. And hustled all those wishless topping toys. So plush. Our buyers have got you covered.

Marshals. We get the deals. You gift the good stuff. Okay. Coming down the home stretch here. Next award, alternate universe. listeners if you're out there i need a new name for this one i never have loved the name for this one it's just sort of where we're at but it's the alternate universe it's the greatest what if of the

fighter's career uh a lot of times this overlaps with the category we'll do after this but not this time in fact both mike and and shaheen seem to have the idea that they've got a good one which is great because i did it for this particular category i don't have them any what ifs for bendo's career So, Mike, what do you got for me here? I feel like Shaheen and I are going to have the same answer here. But as I talked about on my Mount Rushmore, we talked about the Jorge Mazadol win and what that meant for Benson Henderson's career and where his career path took him. My biggest what if is what if he just resigned with the UFC? Like what would his career look like?

What would his attitude be like right now? would he still be as happy and appreciative of his career journey at this point if he elected to resign with the UFC instead of going to what seems at least to him as greener pastures with Bellator since he spent more time there and was obviously very happy there. So I was always curious of like what we'd be talking about on the show had he never gone to Bellator if he just stayed with the UFC for the rest of his career. Because I think after that next contract, I don't know if he would have had as much longevity if he stuck with stuck around the ufc a little bit longer in his career so yeah that's that's my

biggest what if is uh what if he just didn't sign with bell to i'm just stuck around with the ufc and tried to get one last title run at 55 or maybe 170 who the hell knows but at that point in this career okay i can see where you're coming from i've never honestly really spent that much time thinking about it uh it it wouldn't have been a bad thing to have them around i mean lightweight's always been a great division run it run it run a play on the string for me, Mike. What do we think it looks like? If you're just spitballing, I mean, he leaves in 2015, you know, uh, coming up pretty soon. Pettis has the belt at some point in there. RDA takes the belt from him. We know RDA and Bindo fought it was conclusive. Then you get the

Eddie Alvarez, Connor McGregor thing. Do we think Bendo is, is staying in the title conversation or does he become like a Jim Miller-esque guy who's just around the division for some time, but never quite strings together enough to get back to a title shot? I mean, that's what's interesting about it, is it all depends on the matchups and how the promotion views him at the time. And if Benson is sort of the company guy putting him over and all of that, like just think of some of the matchups we could have gotten like at the latter parts of his career, like Benson Henderson and like Tony Ferguson or some of these other guys on the come-up.

Like, maybe he would just end up being a very high-level gatekeeper at 155, considering where the division continued to evolve. But it would be a really interesting place. Yeah. He would have spoiled a few parties. Yeah, he would have. Because I think that's one aspect that we've maybe touched on it, but just like, his longevity for that division is pretty remarkable.

There are not many lightweights who were top 20, top 25-ish range as long as he was. Because even sort of in the latter stages of his Beltaic career, he was still very, very competitive with a lot of these dudes. I think he would, I think that's what would have probably happened. He would have lost some, but he definitely would have won some that he shouldn't have and thatched a few guys out there that were trying to make a name off him.

Yeah, I can see him playing spoiler. You know, maybe never getting all the way back there, but playing spoiler. And I just thought of somebody for the next award as we talked through this that wasn't even on my list. And now I'm just like, that's weird.

but Shaheen it appears that you don't have the same answer so what is your what if for for Bendo no I think that's a good I think that's a good call by Mike that's not one I had considered either because it's so weird the way we think of the Bellator side is it's almost like post script of a lot of this it really is so strange in the same way I saw we talked about it was Shoghan where I just kind of like don't think about any of Shogun's career after he lost the belt to John Jones just like he lost the belt to John Jones and then he was also around for another decade. Yeah, it's the same thing with Bindo.

Like, he left the UFC and then he still kept fighting for 10 more years. And again, it was very competitive and almost won another title in Belter. All so strange. To me, this felt obvious. This was one of my easiest picks. It jumped right off the page to me because it was just like that it's such a different world entirely if this what if is sort of true. Also, may I suggest for you're looking for names.

So are not there. The Everything Everywhere Award. in in commemoration to one of my favorite films of 2020 or 2022. A little alternate timeline stuff. Okay. Just throwing it out there. I love that movie. It was a great film.

What if Anthony Pettis doesn't exist? That's a good one. Because then what happens, right? Benson never loses the WEC title. He's not on the other side of the showtime kick. He comes into the UFC as champion. He gets a title shot immediately. he wins that title shot.

He would have done. The way that it played out, he had to earn his way back in that lightweight division. And it took a couple years. He was better than all of the lightweights around in that time. Like the new era had not come up yet to dethrone him. He probably would have reigned as UFC Lightweight Champion for a good couple years extra and would have just been the sole record holder of that title defense record.

And like, I think we just look at him differently. Even the Anthony Pettis, the way he ended the second title. right. If Anthony does not exist, Benson's career is probably incredibly more impressive. Well, from a strict number, this is a great one. I had honestly never considered this either. From a straight number standpoint, if Anthony Pettus doesn't exist, right? Like, Bindo's, at the time he loses the second one to Pettus, he's 19 and 3 overall, the first one being to the esteemed Rocky

Johnson, as we already covered. So then we're talking about, you know, 19 and 1, 21, 20, one in one UFC LIWay champion multiple times. Let's talk on this thread a little bit, right? So let's say he, Anthony Pettis doesn't exist. He retains a WC champion title, comes over. They didn't let Pettis fight for the belt immediately. They made him take one. He ends up losing that fight.

Let's assume that in this instance, long time. Hold on. So he was supposed to fight. Pettis was supposed to fight the Edgar Mayer winner. And then that just goes to a draw. so he ends up fighting Guida to stay busy. Do we think that happens with Benson? Because even if it does, Benson beats Clay.

Benson's not getting out-wrestled by Clay Guida. They probably do make him fight Guida to stay busy, and then he takes on that. So then we're getting Frankie Edgar, which we know. And then from there, do we think Gray Maynard? Do we think he ever has to fight Gray Maynard? Does Maynard get himself back,

or are we just into the full Nate Diaz, Gilbert Melendez, I don't even know who else could have gone from. I think there is, I think you, there would be a couple other just like sort of people around that space, right? Because there was that length of time where it took Benson to get back to the title. The title was still active. So there were still fights going on for that belt. I think Benson just ends up rolling into the UFC off of like a 10-fight win streak,

11-fight win streak, and then just probably wins his first like eight or nine UFC fights as well. Like we're just looking at one of the greatest lightweight runs ever. He probably ends up, Jim Miller probably benefits because he probably gets a lightweight title shot during this when he was on that eight fight win streak. The one thing that has alluded Jim Miller's entire career still would lose. They fought that fight. But that's an interesting. He has looked at very historically different.

He's probably the number two. He's probably that. We say there's not a number two that's definitive. We all say BJ. Benson's probably that guy because that's probably, that lightweight run is probably unrivaled by anybody outside of Habib at that point because Benson was objectively better than a lot of the guys in the UFC at that point, if not all of them. Yeah. Also, then maybe we get Jose Aldo does get the opportunity. If he's a long, reigning lightweight champion, they maybe try and mix things up.

Okay, you're selling me. This is interesting because I didn't really have a ton of great ones. They all felt negative, which is why I didn't really want to do mine. It's all like, what if he doesn't win the decision, like any of the split decisions he wins, how much worse is his career? I like this. My small honorable mention was something that Jehien brought up earlier with the Koreshkoff fight. What if he just got the damn AC health surgery before he made his Bellator debut? For real. No way it could have hurt him.

No way. To have two functioning knees feels like it's a benefit in fist fighting. But what do I know? Next category. The Habib Tony Award. So the fight that never happened, what you wanted to see. We were talking about it in pre-production. And this one, a little tougher than most.

Shaheen, you said you didn't have anybody that jumped off the page with you. Did you settle on anybody at all? Or was this just, you know, he mostly fought the guys that you won and have expected him to face? I settle on two, but that was really just sort of almost throwing darts at the board. Because as we said earlier, the thing about Benson is he fought pretty much almost every one of relevance of his era. Like he fought all the major champions, almost every single. but he except for two is with the two. BJ Penn, who Benson always idolized.

He wore the shorts. He had the black belt shorts. Still shouts him out on his Instagram. Love it. The black belt shorts are iconic. The greatest lightweight of all time. You love to see it. And also Eddie Alvarez, who's sort of that other guy, right?

He was that other lightweight champ who was doing big things during that time. Those would be the two for me, but, you know, I don't know that I've sat around thinking, man, I'm really bummed. We never got Benson versus Eddie. I think Eddie's a great one, not in the like, I wish we had gotten it more that it's just surprising because their careers ran concurrently the entire time. And they were both high level, high relevant champions and multiple orgs. And the fact that they never did fight feels a little weird.

The fact that their Bellator runs did not, were not concurrent, but they both had long runs. It's just very weird. So that's a good one. Mike, who do you got? So this is actually weird because there was a time in my fanhood where I have thought about this. And it's such a random choice. But I always wondered what this fight would be like because if they met at the right time in like 2009, 2010, it would be freaking electric. Benson Henderson versus Kenny Florian.

Like can you imagine the absolute mayhem those two guys would put up against each other? And it would just like the scrambles on the ground would be super fun. And I think even the action on the feet, even though Benson's not like the greatest striker of all time, I think Kenny can lure kind of that brawling style out of him. I always thought that that would just be like a really interesting fight if we could like go back and throw these two guys in a time machine and throw them in a rando, UFC on FX 14 card and just have them fight it out in a five round main event. Like Benson Henderson versus Kenny Florian is a way better main event than a lot of the main event fights that Benson Henderson had during the fight night era on. with the Fox deal.

So that was one that I would have loved to see. I just want to be different because I figured BJ Penn and Eddie Alvarez would be the two obvious ones. But yeah, I like, Ken Flo would just be like

a really interesting stylistic matchup. I like it. It's a good one. I've got two. One of them is the low hanging fruit, which I'm surprised neither of you mentioned. It's T.J. Grant.

And that fight was the fight that was supposed to happen. And part of me feels that This is more like, I just wish T.J. Grant hadn't retired because of concussions functionally. But, like, that was the fight that was supposed to happen. T.J. Grant gets a concussion never competes again. The whole big story. Would have been a great fight. T.J. Grant was incredibly fun for that limited window where he was a real problem in the division. But the one that sings to my heart, and it doesn't, you'd have to thread a real narrow window.

And frankly, mostly we needed Mike's what if of him not leaving. the UFC. Oh my God. Are you about to say what I'm thinking of them? I hope you are. Tony Ferguson is in fact who I'm about to say. Okay. Because long-time listeners of M.A. Fighting.com will know that I have several great ambitions in life. And one of them is to watch Max Holloway fight Tony Ferguson for the champion. Who is the premier horseman of Angel Wings tattoo in the sport? And Benson Henderson is also a man rocking the majestic full back tat angel wing tattoo and i think he and tony just needed to fight it out for who who gets it who deserves to own that tattoo and if we can throw max in and around robin then i'm also okay with that

i would have been there for it so that's the one that speaks to my heart the tj grant one i feel is like the most obvious of answers yeah great tj's the winner tj's the winner but let me just throw in quickly, Mike, your sort of take on this jogged my mind a little bit. Just throwing this out to the community, you can throw this back. If it's a half-baked idea, if it's not fully baked, feel free to throwback. Benson Henderson, WEC era, taking on WSOF era, Justin Gae. I mean, oh, geez, Louise. That's just delightful.

All offense all the time from both. So, zero difference. Insane pace. Zero defense. W.C. Benson's defense was not get submitted, but that was the extent of it. And Justin Gachie's not trying to tap him.

So all gas, no breaks is what that fight is. Justin might actually shoot a takedown or two in that fight back then. I have no idea what that would look like, but it would go 140 miles an hour the whole way through. That's a great one. That was a very good one. That would be really fun.

Next category, I think I may have left this off the, the doc I sent to you all. We have mentioned what I would, what are kind of the front runners here anyway, uh, so we can just default back to those if I did leave this off. It's the Brad Ims.

Are you serious award for the weirdest career statistic? Fun with numbers. Uh, the most obvious one we mentioned before. Benson fought more times in Bellator and fought for longer from a day's year standpoint in Bellator than he did in the UFC and then he did in the UFC and then he did in the UFC and WC combined by time frame, which again, going back to the fact that our Mount Rushmore has no Belator fights on is truly an insane statistic.

The other thing I have here, he had eight split decisions in his career. I can't confirm this because it's incredibly difficult to just like figure out if anybody had more. I'm willing to bet that he has more split decisions than any fighter who hasn't fought like that's not Jeremy Horn or something who doesn't fall like a hundred times because eight split decisions in how many career,

42 career fights is a lot. Also, 20% of his fights. He won six out of eight of them too. That's a good. Win close fights, man. It's a good,

good stat. Did I leave this off? Do you guys have anything for this category? No, it's the days. It's the, to me, it's the days. How many days he was in Belletor combined with the UFC and WAC stuff? Truly, truly, truly nuts. The next category, Sean Ferris Award for actor who should play them in a film.

It's my favorite category every time because it's named after Sean Ferris, the actor who played Jake Tyler in the cinematic masterpiece, never backed down. One day I'll get him to co-host this pod. And, man, that will be the best day of my career. For now, who's the actor who should play Benson Henderson in a movie? I have one. I came to him almost immediately. I never diverted.

I looked around. Saw nothing else that I liked. I'm going John Boyega. John Boyega feels like Benson Henderson to me. He's young enough to play the part. He's a phenomenal actor. It's a great plan to just get a British dude to act anyway. That's always the way that movies seem to work.

Mike, how do you feel about mine? do you have anybody else that you'd like proffer? All right. So you guys are probably going to have to look this guy up because this was tough. I have the Google machine ready. And I will admit I didn't take a ton of time with this. So I try to put it together in like 10 minutes before we hit record. But I think I found a really good choice here because he's a newer actor.

He's done some TV. He's more of a model, but he's getting into acting. He's done a lot of like variety shows. I think he did his first film recently. He's a younger man, but when I looked it up, he kind of looks like Benson, and he's sort of of the same descent, and he's got sort of funky hair. And if we're doing young man Bendo early in his career, and we add some older age effects to this guy, his name is Han H-H-N-M-N-H-A-N-N-N-L-A-N-L-L-A-N. And I think this dude is pretty damn good. He's tall. He's tall.

He's taller. I think he's like 6-2 or 6-3, so he's got a few inches on Bendo. But I think like facially and the hair and the sort of the look to him, I think just like a little bit of effect in makeup to make him look a little more like gritty. I think he's, I think he's a good choice. I think he's a good choice. Does he has a little bit of the match to the look on him. Also, a very handsome young man.

Very handsome, man. Looks good getting off the bus. Looks great getting off the bus, which you know, Bindo always look great getting off the bus. I don't know about this man's acting chops. I have not seen him in anything, I don't think. No idea if this guy can act at all. I think he can play Benson Henderson. You sold me on the look.

He's Benson for sure. The look is good. Shaheen, who do you got? I didn't have anybody good for this one. I feel like I struggle sometimes with this category. I just couldn't come up with a name on this one. That's okay. This is AK's category.

Yeah, this is AK's time to shine. This is where AK shots. We should cameo him in, parachute him in for this. Honestly, I should have. I should have just,

maybe I'll do it in post. Maybe I'll hit up AK. I'm like, who could be the actor for Bindo? Give me five minutes on the pod. Next category, almost done just a couple more to go. The Cole Conrad career change reward.

What would Benson be doing if he were not a professional fist fighter? Shaheen, let's go to you. This to me was another one that the first instinct felt like the right answer. And I didn't look farther than that. He would be a preacher. Oh, you nailed it.

Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, nailed it. I'm with you all the way. His faith is so important to him. And, you know, it's such a big part of his life. I think that would be if he didn't go down this road, I know he's talked about potentially have been a policeman or like a soldier or something like that. I think he would have ultimately found his calling in something faith-related.

100% I have youth group minister written down because just the general way I've ever seen him interact with anybody is that that kind of guy who's, you know, there to help people out. Super nice. Faith is a great guy. Great guy. Great guy. Great guy. Never met him. But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

He was always the first thing he said post interviews, post fights. Youth group ministers is what I had. So we're of the same mind. Mike, you were nodding along. Are you also in that in that group with us? No, because I knew you were both going to choose that. So I thought about this a lot. And the first one I wrote down and then I eventually crossed it off was

world's most popular police officer because he would serve the community. He would be one of the good ones. But he'd be buying kids ice cream every day. Like that's just the kind of cop he would be. He would go viral for his for his giving nature of serving the community. I ultimately went with like one of two things. One, I think he'd be a terrific sports psychologist. I think he'd be a terrific sport psychologist.

But the one I ultimately landed on was he would be, I think Colby Covington should hire him. Because I think he'd be a great PR representative for athletes and kind of a coach on how to script out and coach athletes on how to conduct themselves as a professional. He is what Kevin Costner was in Bull Durham, where maybe there's a cliche kind of a statement that needs to be made. But what Benson Henderson does so well is he takes those cliche kind of statements like,

oh, I just want to do what's best for the team or this and that. But he does it in such an amazing outside of the box fashion that it almost like makes you don't believe that it's a cliche. Like I pulled this quote because I thought it was just delightful. you could be the when he was asked about people not liking him or people booing him you could be the tastiest

most juiciest most delicious peach out there in the world there's still going to be people out there who don't like peaches I mean that is classic I love him for peaches that's so good classic pensive Anderson

and I think so many fighters can learn from him that you can like you don't have to be an asshole to get big fights and be looked at in such a high regard and get a damn they were good about you Benson is like, Benson is like the anti-Covington.

He did things in a totally different way, very faith-driven, and wasn't boring about not actually answering questions. He just found different ways to make them interesting, even though he wasn't really saying anything. And it's such a great skill that professional athletes need and never use and never realize the importance of it. And I think Benson had to be like a great athlete coach for like,

here, here's how you do press conferences. and answer these questions because those media guys are going to try to get you to say stuff so they can clip them off for social media hits. Benson Henderson would be a great, like, be a great guy to help fighters do that. So, yeah, I'm going. I love that. I absolutely love that because you're 100% right.

He was so good at sort of threading that needle while still seeing, well, still just appearing genuine. Yeah. Like really, that's what it is. Just being authentic, right? Like, I feel like a lot of people, times stuff like this can come off is inauthentic, but he authentically came off as himself and he's just like one of the nicest human beans I've ever met in MMA.

Like MMA is a real mindfield. When it comes to the personalities in it, you can meet a lot of jerks. Benz is just salt to the earth, man. He is one of the best people in this sport. More importantly, Shaheen, is there like, you're from the Zona. A lot of peaches in Arizona?

That is just not the food item I intend, like, I'm from Georgia. Peaches are very much a thing. It's the Peach State. Didn't anticipate Peach being the the item of choice in that metaphor from Benno. Made peaches sound utterly delicious, though, kind of hanged from one myself after all the juicy talk.

Peaches are delicious. So that was a great quote, pull mic. Oh my God. There's actual, like, websites, like,

like there are very few fighters who have their own brainy quote page. Benson Henderson has his own brainy quote page with like, I mean, tons of quotes. So many of them. And I didn't realize, like, I'm pretty low-key, pretty boring to be honest.

Like, just little things like that. Like, he's just going back and, like, reading old Q&A interviews that he did. It's just like people writing word for word what he said is just the best. Like, someone would ask him like a question he had to think about it. It goes, oh, that's a really compelling journalistic question, young man. Like, just things like that just makes him so different. It's great. I remember I spoke to him for, I spoke to a bunch of time, but for one of them that stuck out was I'd spoke to him for the Nate Diaz's night we face.

that I did like a long time ago. And like I had to hold myself back from making that thing one fourth, just Benson quotes. Because it was just so, he's so good with it. He's like Cheo where like, Cheo will just, once you dig into it and write it and transcribe it, like it's just too much good stuff a lot of the time. It's just, that's a great call. That's a great call. I'll do one more, which, which like, I mean, this, this personified Benson.

I remember, I don't remember like when it was, but it was one. It was after he was with Bellator and someone asked him about like, well, since you're over there and you're so happy with Bellator, like, what do you want to say to all the fighters that like become free agents? Like, should they come over? Almost like they're trying to be like poking prod at the UFC and like why Bellator is better. And his answer was maybe Bellator would not be a great fit for this guy, but it would be for this guy. And that was the quote. He's just sat on the fence so brilliantly. it's just the best, the best.

It's one of those things where it's like this would kill me when his title run was going on, like the vilification of him, villainification. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Always just baffled me. Like it ultimately went back to the decisions. But it's just like,

how could you dislike such an interesting, nice, entertaining man? That was ultimately what always came back to for me. Just one of the good guys. He's MMA's TV dad. Like, I don't know if you've seen like the progressive commercials with the guy who played Carl Winslow,

that's who Benson Henderson is in the MMA space. When you're old enough, you'll understand. Like, that's Benson Henderson. Great stuff. I'm sure he's a great dad. I'm sure he's tremendous.

Also, it's important that we note that that man's name is Reginald Val Johnson. Correct. From diehard as well. Just a great, great T. All-time TV, Dad. Second and the last category, guys. The last true category,

it's the, look at him in that. Leon Edwards Award for the best single moment, the fighter's career. I have one and I don't think you guys picked it. So I'm going to hold mine for last. Mike, let's go right back to you. What do you got? The best singular moment? Oh, I think I read this question.

What's the peak? You know, what's the apex? I mean, it's 2009 to when he lost the UFC title. I mean, Jesus Christ. This run is just unbelievable. Three and O in 2009, a couple finishes, gets the. the fight of the year against Soroni wins the interim title. Then he submits Jamie Varner to win the undisputed title.

Then the rematch Soroni happens. And everyone was like, oh, it's going to be another absolute banger and all-out classic. It wasn't because Benson ran his ass over and submitted him quick. Then he loses to Anthony Pettis, but his stock rises tremendously because he has the fight of the year for M.AFighting.com great website for the second straight year. It's just an insane fight. And then he goes to the UFC where he wins his first three fights, gets a title. shot wins the belt, wins the rematch with Frankie Edgar, a little controversial, but not that badly. Then he put a professional beat down on Nate Diaz, the toothpick, had the close fight with

Gilwin Melendez before Pettus got him to win the belt. Pettish just seemed like to be the guy that had his number. But my God, that four and a half year stretch for Benson Henderson, it's an all-timer. Like, it's an all-timer run. And it just doesn't get enough love because it seemed to have happened so long ago, but that stretch of fights, two fight of the years, multiple championships, must watch television, that's the peak for him, those four and a half years. All right, Gene, let's see what you got in this one. Yeah, I mean, I maybe narrowed the window down a little bit, but I'm ultimately, Mike's right. To me, it was 2012. The two Frankie fights and then caps it off with the Nate Diaz fight where

wins the title beats Frankie a second time and then there's going to that Nate fight there's still a lot of questions around Benson of you know, there's some people hating these decisions and whatever. And it's a big Fox show. Benson in a way became Mr. Fox. He was always being put on these Fox shows. And as Mike called it, a professional ass beating. He just put the wood to Nate Diaz. And people came away from that fight being like,

all right, yeah, this guy is the champ. Like, this guy feels like the UFC lightweight champ. To me, it was that. It was never better than that. Did you, you didn't have the, you left Nate Diaz off your Rushmore too, right? I had, I had Diaz on my Rushmore. Or you did have Nate Diaz. Okay.

I left the Frankie fight off. Fair, fair. So I didn't think either of you would go for this one. I'm right, and I'm about to tell you why my choice is right. It's very specific. It's UFC on Fox 7. It's the Gilbert Melendez win. Now, for a couple of reasons, aside from the fact that he defends his title,

even though controversial to or whatever extent, sure, sure. It's his last successful title defense for he's about to lose a pettis. But most importantly, at the end of that fight, after he's, is holding his belt that he is retained. He does it. He proposes to his then-girlfriend, now wife, mother of his children. He proposes on Fox television after defending the UFC lightweight championship of the world. The balls it takes to be like, I'm going to win this fight and I'm going to do this.

And to know you can call that shot, that can go so poorly. If he had waited until the Pettus rematch, boom. Obviously, this doesn't land. He sticks the landing, and that, that's a win. True story. We're going to delve into my personal life. When I was in high school, I asked a girl to go to prom, my senior prom, by waiting until I scored a goal in a soccer game and then taking my shirt off in the stands or whatever.

The, what? This is a dead, that's how I asked a girl to go to prom. It was on, isn't like the paper and stuff. It was like this whole elaborate thing. that game was the worst I planned it because I was very good at soccer in high school whatever

I was like I'm going to do it next game that game was the worst game of my life I could not buy a goal because of all the stress and the pressure of like I need to finish the drill here to do this thing and so the whole first half I hit like the crossball like four times

it was impossibly bad and so I look at this man who's not playing high school soccer against some bums in South Georgia. He's fighting for the championship of the world, and he adds that extra bit of pressure to him against a champion in another organization. I have nothing but respect for this move,

and I think that has to be your peak. You call your shot like that, you get engaged. It's the biggest moment. When you ask Benson, text him, she'd be like, what are the three biggest moments of four? Because I think he has three kids. What are the four biggest moments of your life?

and be like the birth of my three children and the day I proposed to my wife. Okay, he has four cheese. So many of them. He keeps adding him up. But yeah, I... No, he will say this is the best moment of his career. Yeah. Oh, see, boom, I knew it.

Because how could it be any better? You can't, he should have retired after this, frankly. So I have two addendums to this incredible few minutes you just gave us right there. One, you say how ballsy this was. It was even ballsyer than you ill. illustrated because not only did he beat, you know, defend the title, he did it in Gilbert Melendez's home arena. Like Gilbert Melinda's San Jose guy, strike force guy under a chorus of booze. Dude was getting furiously booed while proposing to his wife and did not care whatsoever. I don't

care what all these people are saying, I'm a, I'm going to still do this and still get it done. And even after she said, yes, the booze kept coming. Like it did not stop. They did not give them a break. Can you imagine that? Can you possibly imagine proposing to someone to a crowd of booze? It would shake me. That would ruin me. It would shake the hell to me.

Second of the end of them, you cannot leave us. You cannot tell a story like that and then leave it hanging. Did she say yes? Did you ask? How did this work? Well, I had a message on my shirt that said prom question mark. And it was a girl I was dating at the time. time. And so like everyone knew all. So she played on the women's team and the women's team always

stayed and watched our game because we played after them. We always came early and watched theirs. And I told several of her friends on the team to be like, hey, make sure she doesn't go get a Coke or whatever during the game. So I'm going to do this. And then yeah, she said yes, obviously, because this would be a really shitty story. It would be really funny. So did you squeeze in a goal in the second half? Or did you have afterward you had to be like. No, once I broke the seal, I think I finished with the hat trick that game. But the first goal was impossible to score. It took so much effort.

And as I look back on that in my life, I'm like, yeah, it was just really stressful. And so I probably wasn't playing that well because I told several people I was going to do this to be part of the gag. And then if I don't deliver, I look like the world's biggest jackass. So, you know, props to Bindo is all I'm saying. That feels like your career peak for me. Guys, props to Jedmishu, Patrick, soccer star. Peeling back the onion. Savannah Morning News, player of the year in 2006.

Wow. Yeah. Good job, man. Appreciate you guys. And that, now that we're done with my personal life, we're ready to wrap this up, talking the legacy, we're just putting a bow on everything. This whole pod was just a front for you to brag on your. Yes.

It was all a big front. the legacy we're talking about it wrap it up put a bow on it how do you feel about benson henderson what he means to the sport to you personally etc etc where does he fit in the pantheon of m m m m m mary let's start with you well i thought about this uh when my picture is in the burlington union when i was 16 uh after pitching a shutout against against boomer in high school now um that was a phenomenal start mike I mean, look, I think we've sort of encapsulated a lot of Benson's career in that run specifically, but I think how I remember Benson Henderson and how I'll remember his career is that he is a professional athlete.

He is a professional athlete. Professional fighters are always frowned upon by the casual sports viewing audience, a bunch of Neanderthals, you know, human cockfighting, all of that. You show them anything from Benson Henderson. you might be kind of, you know, terrified by watching him fight and just the pace he put on in some of the performances that he had. But then you hear the man speak in his belief system and everything that he believes in and everything that has shaped him as a person. He is, like, if there was an actual, like, spokesman for, like, if there is a person, they'd say

in pro wrestling all the time, like, you want your champion to be the guy that, you know, the crowd loves, they respect, you can send them to events and they will represent our company better in our sport better than anybody. Benson Henderson is that guy for MMA. That guy could do anything to make your sport shine in a more positive light than it ever could just with what he says, how he conducts himself, everything about him, family man, husband, dad, you know, a very religious guy. He is he is MMA's professional athlete. He, that's it. He is a professional in the cage, out of it, everything about him.

He is maybe the best representative for mixed martial arts pound for pound in the entire sports history. He is that guy. And I don't think anybody from a championship standpoint and how the sport has evolved and where it's become and what sells tickets now, Benson Henderson is the anti that. And he still had a very successful career. he is MMA's professional athlete. And he did it his way. And so respect to you, Benson Henderson, for not falling for the cheap questions

and the headline poppers. You just remained yourself. And no one can take that away from you. You are MMA's professional athlete. Well said, Mike Shaheen. That was beautiful. I love that. You know, I was giving this a lot of thought

when I was winning first place at the Santer Day O'Connor weightlifting couple. petition as a 14-year-old in the power clean division. I was really crushing it. You're a power clean guy? I was a monster power clean guy. I would not have expected that. Okay. Also, you know, state and hurdles. What can I say? Just an athlete is what we're talking about. No, man. I mean, Benson's, okay, I won't, Mike, I want to echo everything Mike said, because Mike hit it perfectly nail on the head. Benson is the pre-nices MFER era,

but he was the nicest M-Fer for his entire career. Oh, that's such a good point. Like, he was that guy. Him and Stephen Thompson would have the craziest compliment battle ever if there was a lead-up to their fight. Like whatever that face-off would be, I want to see Ariel in the middle of the two of them. Just be like, hey, can you guys talk nice about each other for an hour

and just see how deep that can go? Because it would just go, it would be tremendous to watch. But also, just again, I think, this is, he is someone that will unfairly be looked at by history 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line. When we start talking about the great lightweights of this era, I don't know if he will be mentioned. And that to me feels like an injustice because again, we were just talking about the run. Mike, Mike mentioned the four year run, five year run there. One of the greatest runs for any lightweight ever. And you can pick holes in any resume ever. You could say,

ah, this name wasn't that good. This name is worse off in retrospect. But in the moment, all these names were sensational that Benson was rattling off. And at his peak, he was someone who, you know, you can say whatever about the decisions later on, but at his peak in the WEC and early UFC era, he was someone who was pure entertainment personified. He was an incredible viewing experience every single timeout, everything you would want from a martial artist from a champion. He was humble while doing it. And all these fights were just explosive with the energy and fluidity and the furious pace. The way he weaponized that pace was absolutely riveting, the scramble fest that sort of just would unfold constantly, unbelievable theater.

And UFC Lightweights frankly didn't know how to handle it. Like UFC Lightweights had not seen someone like this when he entered the UFC. He was Clay Guida, but if Clay Guido was like actually athletic and powerful and like kind of, you know, had those extra intangibles. Like he was that dude. And also like he was just willing to do crazy shit. Like the up kicks, the weird like Mortal Kombat style like sweep kicks. Like all the just different. martial arts techniques that you wouldn't see, he would be throwing those out in the middle of title fights. And it would just be so smooth. And it goes back to that nickname. Like everything he did was so fluid and so smooth. And also not for nothing, we haven't mentioned this once.

Dude was kind of the first, one of the first you guys super early on the Kafkaic bandwagon. He was using calf kicks before anybody really was in major MMA. And that became ultimately one of the main tools that guys now use. And he was throwing those out against an eight Dias. And Mark Bocheck and all these guys way back then when no one really understood the volatility and the danger of the cat kick and how effective it could be in high level of MMA. Like he was on that train. So for Benson, I mean, I feel like I lump him, Donald and Anthony altogether as sort of this triumvirate that really, again, represented this validation that they're, even in this post-primera,

there is still remarkable talent outside of the UFC. And so it always felt silly to me when people would say like, oh, those strike force guys, They're not as good as the UFC people. Those whatever guys, Bellator guys, whoever, they're not as good at the UFC. And then we see time and time again every time this happens. Pride guys come in, they win titles. Strike Force guys come in when they win titles. WEC guys come in, they win titles.

We just consistently see it. Bellator guys. Michael Chandler's out here suddenly being a superstar and dude's been Bellator forever. So it's just, it's so silly every time. But yeah, Benson Henderson is the man. He's one of the greatest lightweights of all time. And you can tell me you could argue against it, but you're wrong. Well said, Jehien.

And so what you said there, it leads me into my final takeaway, frankly. Because when I originally conceived of this show, it wasn't supposed to be about remembering the greatest fighters of all time, former champions, all that. It was largely supposed to be about the other guys, about showing love to the guys who were good, but never great, but still were important to the sport while we love it, you know, the most exciting, et cetera, those kind of guys. But as the shows developed, we've obviously done some all-time grades and champions.

And a lot of that's because I realize that history is really tough on, on frankly, everyone in this sport. The lifecycle of lima fans is so short. There's such constant turnover that new fans are coming in all the time and they don't really have a sense of the history. You get guys like Shogunhua and Benton Henderson who are among the very best fighters in the world for a not insignificant stretch of time. And because they hang around for a while and, you know,

certain fan groups come in at set times. A large group of people may know who Benson Henderson is kind of generally, but their own, their only real experiences are watching them lose or be fat and fighting in the UFC or whatever, something like that. And the real thing I've learned in doing this show is that it's not just new fans.

I had the same issue. That's what I've learned from this episode, from Benson Henderson himself. Because I came into this show, you know, at least understanding abstractly that Bendo was a really good fighter during his time. And the truth is, I'd forgotten how good he really was. Because in my head, it was, as I mentioned, like, he robbed Frankie twice, and he robbed Gilbert Melendez. And he really didn't win most of his UFC fights. And he got dummied by Anthony Pettus twice.

And so then he left the Bellator where he fought a bunch of guys who weren't as good and had middling results. and he never ended up winning a belt. So in my head, it's just Benson wasn't very good. Like, he was a good, but not great fighter. And then it went back. And I rewatched because that's what this show is about. And as I rewatched, I remembered.

And I realized, frankly, that what both of you guys just said is true. Benson wasn't a good fighter. He was a great fighter. He was on the cutting edge of the MMA meta game. Like, with the calf kick sheen, with the high pace and pressure. He was doing those things before they became

frankly standard issue for the sport and certainly for the division. Like Mike said, he was a professional. He always showed up. He did his job. He never really had a bad word to say about anybody. And frankly, you would be hard pressed to find someone in the sport with a bad word to say about him, which is a testament to his character. Because again, he carried himself with that respect and held that respect for everyone else.

And on top of that, he was damn excited. And that wasn't, you know, two fights of the year. I'd forgotten entirely that those were fights of the year until we watched him. He continued to deliver every time he was in the cage. And that frankly lasted right up until the end of his career, even in Bellator. I think you mentioned it earlier, Shaheen, his fight with Michael Chandler, pretty damn good to watch. Like, he stayed at the top of the game competing, delivering, being exciting forever. And then on top of that, I mean, realistically, he for four or five years, he's one of the very best fighters in the world.

And I think time is going to, like you said, it's going to take away from him as the lightweight division continues to set the standard for the sport. His resume will be increasingly, it will increasingly lose its luster. But it really shouldn't because of all the things he said. I mean, if you were at any point one of the best fighters in the world and nobody has anything bad to say about you, I would hope that that legacy carries on in a really substantive and meaningful way. And I think that's what the show is kind of is all about, frankly. And so as you head into retirement, Bendo, you don't like Bindo, smooth. As you head into retirement smooth, I have nothing else to say to you. but congratulations, well-earned. We'll see you in the UFC Hall of Fame one day.

I'm certain of it. And enjoy it. And damn, you were good. And that's it, ladies and gentlemen, another episode in the books. Always try and keep it a little shorter, never seem to pull it off, because it's too damn fun to talk about these guys. We'll have another one coming up next month. I have some ideas about who it's going to be,

but we'll see before that's set in stone. Until then, I want to thank you guys listening to innermafining.com's podcast network. Thank you for reading at www.com. But great website, great podcast network, and great panelists, the esteemed

Shaheen Al-Shadi and Mike Heck, I appreciate you for joining me. Until next time, love y'all. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line, but first there, the last one.

Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Caro, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like glass animals. I guess that was the idea was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy.

And you can listen wherever you get your podcast. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.