Famous Benson Henderson Quotes: Benson Henderson is an American mixed martial artist known for discipline and resilience. His words inspire focus and perseverance. They encourage people to train hard, stay confident, and overcome challenges.
“Public image can change at the drop of a hat. One person can be a national hero and a month later because he wore the wrong colour he’s violently hated so it just all depends.” — Benson Henderson
“I don’t really fight for money. I don’t really care about the pay-per-view. The reason why I love fighting on free TV on FOX as opposed to pay-per-view is because the demographic is a lot broader.” — Benson Henderson
“I’d say for sure though, read the fine print in the contract. Make sure after you defend your belt for however many times and then you lose, you’re not making less money than a kid who had three fights in the UFC. That’s a shame. That’s laughable. That is a shame.” — Benson Henderson
“Just as fighters you have to be smart, you have to read the fine print in your contract and you have to do what’s best for your family.” — Benson Henderson
“Like the way Anderson Silva does it – have a fight at 205 every once in a while and always make 185, his weight class.” — Benson Henderson
“I don’t want to be one of those guys who says, ‘No, I won’t fight that guy’ or ‘I won’t fight the guy there; I need to fight him here,’ or that sort of stuff. The UFC says, ‘This is who you’re fighting next,’ and I say, ‘Cool. Let’s do it.'” — Benson Henderson
“I fight quite a bit.” — Benson Henderson
“Every fight, I always try to get better and improve.” — Benson Henderson
“If a guy’s a very good wrestler or a really good boxer or has a really good high kick, you prepare for that. It’s the same when you’re going to fight someone who talks a lot of crap.” — Benson Henderson
“It’s definitely a motivational factor, becoming a three-organization world champion.” — Benson Henderson
“Nick and Nate Diaz. We’re different people, we have different personalities. But I have mad respect for them because that is them. That is Nick and Nate being themselves and not putting on a front. Not acting differently when the cameras on than when the cameras off. I got a lot of respect for Nick and Nate for that reason.” — Benson Henderson
“If it comes it comes. But you can’t look for a finish. If you look for a home run ball you’ll never hit the home run; if you look for a goal you’ll never get it but if you play the game, if you play football and the guy that’s open gives you a pass and you score the goal, that’s when you score. That’s when you get all the goals.” — Benson Henderson
“We’re fighters. Stop worrying about showing up in a fur coat. Get out of here with that.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m always in the gym, six hours a day. I’m in the gym all the time, six days a week. It’s one of the reason why my training camps are a little bit shorter. My training camp is five weeks long because I only need four weeks to get into fighting shape.” — Benson Henderson
“I’d be okay with that – staying at 155, making weight at 155 for the rest of my career. But every once in a while, having a super fight at 170 – St-Pierre and I squaring off. I’d be cool with that.” — Benson Henderson
“It’s a long journey to become successful, and you learn to grow with it. You grow with the small steps you take.” — Benson Henderson
“There’s whole lot of things you can get better at, improve on, day to day.” — Benson Henderson
“I don’t always do a whole lot.” — Benson Henderson
“You try to make your sparring sessions as realistic as possible.” — Benson Henderson
“Seeing the fight game and seeing the way things have worked out, a guy could be on a seven-fight, monstrous win streak and not get a title shot. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.” — Benson Henderson
“You just can’t say ‘I’ll fight anybody.’ Some guys do that early in their career, and their careers never have a chance to develop, because they have had five fights at 170 pounds, when they’re walking around at 147 pounds. It’s not smart.” — Benson Henderson
“When you actually have a little bit of food and some calories behind you, it just feels better.” — Benson Henderson
“You want to be on TV, I want to be on TV, I want to be a part of 20 million viewers, new fans. I’d love to have that opportunity, that chance.” — Benson Henderson
“I just love pure, uncompromised competition. No ball, no net, no goalie, just one person versus one person, and you can do whatever you have to do to get your hand raised.” — Benson Henderson
“Everybody I step in the cage against I have the utmost respect for.” — Benson Henderson
“Brock Lesnar, he did a pretty darn good job. He was a WWE star. He came to the UFC and won the UFC belt.” — Benson Henderson
“I didn’t know that I would be the UFC champion. Did I intend on being the UFC champ? Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t exactly see myself doing this as a full time job or career but I certainly intended for it when I started down this path.” — Benson Henderson
“A lot of times, people take other people’s confidence for cockiness, airheadedness, rashness or brashness, and that’s the light in which they see you when you say you always knew you’d be a champion, blah blah blah. Well, you have to be confident in the sport we do. As an athlete, in general, you have to be confident.” — Benson Henderson
“Our older cousins would help us out. We’d get babysat a lot by some of mum’s sisters. They took care of us. But my success in martial arts, getting to be a champion, is down to my mum.” — Benson Henderson
“Of course to be a legend of the sport you have to truly have to have a love for MMA. You can be successful in MMA without having that love.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m always trying to add new tricks, work on my fundamentals, and get better and improve.” — Benson Henderson
“You can pick and choose how to portray yourself.” — Benson Henderson
“The ability to get sponsors on your own and not have to rely on the amount that Reebok dictates to you was a huge factor. I’d be straight up lying if I said it wasn’t a very big part of my decision to go to Bellator.” — Benson Henderson
“I don’t like the people, the guys who feel the need to be Donald Trump and say outlandish things just for the sake of being in the headline, just for the sake of creating a stir and getting their name out there.” — Benson Henderson
“Do you want to be famous, or do you want to have actual money to take care of your family down the line? I’d say it’s a case by case call there. Some guys fight for different reasons. What do you fight for? Do you fight for this reason or for that reason.” — Benson Henderson
“A lot of guys need to get back in shape, I’m in the gym all the time so I don’t really lose my conditioning as much as other people.” — Benson Henderson
“I would like to fight for the Brazilian fans. I would like to fight Aldo in Brazil.” — Benson Henderson
“A lot worse things can happen than losing your world title. But I was able to come to terms with it, accept it, be mature about it.” — Benson Henderson
“I like getting my hand raised and I’ll take it any way I can get it. Slipping on a banana peel, by the skin of my teeth. By any means, you know?” — Benson Henderson
“Anytime you have anybody that’s physically a great athlete and a great specimen, they have the work ethic. They know how to work, know how to improve, know how to get better. They are special athletes.” — Benson Henderson
“It’s a very slippery slope when you have a world champion boxer fighting an MMA guy for the sake of money, and he can’t knock him out in the first round. He has to make sure he carries him a little bit.” — Benson Henderson
“Bellator is open to a fighters union – fighters binding together to see what’s in our best interest. That’s something you can’t even breathe about elsewhere. I think it’s a good thing for myself and other fighters to have that.” — Benson Henderson
“Wrestling was you wrestle in college and you become a high school coach. That was it for wrestlers. We just started to realize there is a legitimate career choice we can choose to use all our wrestling skills we spent our entire lives learning. There is something we can do it now, it’s MMA.” — Benson Henderson
“As long as you’re you, be you, do you. But be real.” — Benson Henderson
“Maybe Bellator would not be a great fit for this guy but would be for this guy. Maybe the UFC is a better call for this guy, but then Bellator is better for that guy. I don’t think you can make a blanket statement and say that this organization is great for everybody compared to this organization. Take it case by case.” — Benson Henderson
“I was born in Colorado Springs and I spent a lot of time there. I moved to Denver when I first started training in MMA full time.” — Benson Henderson
“I will fight Chandler again and I will make him quit.” — Benson Henderson
“Before, early in my career, it was always just go out there and beat the next guy up. Whoever they put in front of me, just go beat him up. Everything else would take care of itself. You want more money? Go beat the next guy up, it will take care of itself. You want better sponsors? Go beat the next guy, it will take care of itself.” — Benson Henderson
“I had a very big chip on my shoulder – I won’t even lie to you. I had a very large chip on my shoulder.” — Benson Henderson
“I’d end up being late no matter what before I had kids. Now, with kids, I’m super late everywhere I go.” — Benson Henderson
“As I get older, I eat healthier, try to eat the right things, make all these little sacrifices that it takes to be a champion.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m not as big of a fan of being loud, brash and boisterous just for the sake of selling a fight.” — Benson Henderson
“You don’t have to be 6-foot-7, you don’t have to be 300 pounds. You can be 5-foot-2 and 135 pounds and still be one of the baddest dudes on the planet.” — Benson Henderson
“You work on you doing your thing, sticking to your game plan, not letting stuff distract you and get you into a danger zone.” — Benson Henderson
“You’ve got to earn way to a title shot.” — Benson Henderson
“I’ve always held a pretty strong civic duty.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m pretty low-key. I’m pretty boring, to be honest.” — Benson Henderson
“I like to have performances where I don’t get too beat up and don’t take too much punishment. I’m OK doing three or four times a year. That’s fine by me.” — Benson Henderson
“There’s a reason that football players, that still choose to come over to train MMA. They’re professional and phenomenal freak athletes and they know how to work as professional athletes. They know how to get better and know how to improve.” — Benson Henderson
“You’re never going to release the next album and have it be different from your other two, three, four, five albums. People give them a hard time, but it’s like, ‘I’m an artist, I’m trying to grow. I don’t want to have the same album for 10 albums in a row!’ Same thing for a martial artist.” — Benson Henderson
“You want to raise good kids, but it doesn’t happen in one day. You want to be a great fighter, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.” — Benson Henderson
“It’s about how much hard work you put in and who works harder – that’s who wins the fights. The fight itself, when the cameras are there, that’s your chance to show off and say, ‘You millions of people around the world watching this, look what I can do!'” — Benson Henderson
“I think unions are a good thing, but sometimes, not to get too political, but unions can go the wrong way, but the idea of unions are good, they’re smart, they’re positive for the average American in the workforce.” — Benson Henderson
“I first decided that I could make a career of MMA after I decided to take it seriously and not act like a teenager in some band, but fully commit myself like a professional. Roughly, when I decided to up and move in the middle of the night from Omaha, Neb. to Denver, Colo. for proper training.” — Benson Henderson
“Bellator is collecting talent, collecting world-level talent all across the board.” — Benson Henderson
“Sometimes, you go out there and get knocked out in the first seven seconds. That might be one out of 10 times, but that is why we fight.” — Benson Henderson
“If I keep on winning and keep putting the work in, then everything else falls into place.” — Benson Henderson
“I’ve never been one of those guys who is going to hold out and wait for a title shot.” — Benson Henderson
“When I first started training Tae Kwon Do, it was more just for discipline. My brother and I were two knuckleheads and my mom being a single mother wanted us to get more discipline somewhere other than her yelling at us. But I had no visions at all or aspirations of going from Tae Kwon Do into mixed martial arts.” — Benson Henderson
“I like to think that I’m a pretty intelligent fighter and haven’t underestimated any of my opponents.” — Benson Henderson
“We live in a capitalistic society, don’t we? Our country is based on the idea of the free market. Why not incorporate that free-market ideal into your career as a mixed martial artist?” — Benson Henderson
“My dream job growing up was to become a police officer.” — Benson Henderson
“Whether you want more money, whether you want more fame, whether you want more attention, whether you want a bigger house, whether you want a bigger contract, whatever it is you want, you have to win your next fight. That’s it.” — Benson Henderson
“You lay the groundwork, stay on the grind, and then eventually you get those big huge national deals with TV stations that are seen worldwide.” — Benson Henderson
“If you want the belt, you’ve got to fight everybody that lines up in front of you. You have to prove yourself by beating them anyways, so what does it matter if you beat them before you have the belt or after you have the belt?” — Benson Henderson
“For sure I think the traditional martial arts is a good background to have and definitely allows me to do a lot different things inside the cage. My wrestling background definitely helps me out a lot, but I don’t think either one led directly to MMA.” — Benson Henderson
“People a lot of times have expectations for combinations, if you can throw something that they don’t expect or throw something in a way that they don’t expect it, it can be pretty successful.” — Benson Henderson
“I always wanted to help people. I graduated from college and applied to a couple of police departments, Omaha and Denver, because I liked Denver a lot. It turns out they liked me and accepted me right away. I got hired both places, but I wanted to try fighting.” — Benson Henderson
“At 170… I need to have a 97 percent performance. And some of the guys at 170, they need to have maybe an 85 percent performance. They need to not be at their best for me to beat them.” — Benson Henderson
“You want to say you’re the best on the planet? Well, prove it by beating this person and that person. Beat everybody.” — Benson Henderson
“Fighting is hard, fighting is tough. You get beat up in the body. It’s hard; it takes a toll on your body.” — Benson Henderson
“A lot of my kicks are unique to MMA and the fight game in general. I wouldn’t say that it’s on purpose, but more because I’ve had success doing them and using them. I just use them more often.” — Benson Henderson
“I think it’s smart to fight to the end of your contract and see what your worth is on the open market.” — Benson Henderson
“The funny thing I thought was, no matter what, people talked bad about cops. But as soon as something bad happened, when their car got stolen, who was the first person they called? Police officers. They expected them to help out and take care of them to get their stolen car back, and they did. That, to me, was a pretty big thing.” — Benson Henderson
“I think the mental aspect is important in all fights.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m not one of those guys that says something stupid just for the sake of getting more attention.” — Benson Henderson
“There’s a difference between being over something and learning to deal with it.” — Benson Henderson
“By the time I hit 33 I intend on retiring. I’m done after that.” — Benson Henderson
“Being able just to worry about what it is I do best, going in there and beating somebody up, getting my hand raised – that’s what I really like doing.” — Benson Henderson
“A loss is always frustrating.” — Benson Henderson
“I love to talk to kids and be a positive influence. It’s good to hear about positive things and someone say ‘do the right things’ from someone other than their grandma or their mom.” — Benson Henderson
“I just go out there and do what I do and the reason I think the Diaz’s are so great, the reason they’re so liked by fans and everybody – and I’m a fan of the Diaz brothers – is because they’re real, they don’t put on a show.” — Benson Henderson
“I’m as confident as any fighter out there.” — Benson Henderson
“I lost in my junior year of college in the NAIA national semifinals in 2005 and I’m not over that. I got inside leg tripped by Jake Dieffenbach and failed to go to the national title match. I don’t get over things.” — Benson Henderson
“I think competition is good. The world we live in, we’re a capitalistic society and we’re all about having options, so I think it’s good.” — Benson Henderson
“Once you reach a certain point in your career, every fight is a new big fight, biggest fight of your life, biggest fight of your career.” — Benson Henderson
“Every fight is a close dogfight.” — Benson Henderson
“The bigger size of the weight class, guys are going to get tired a little bit quicker. They get tired to where they can’t even keep their hands up in the fourth and fifth round.” — Benson Henderson
“All fighters are pretty confident by nature, that’s just how we are.” — Benson Henderson
“The career span for athletes is very short-lived. So you aren’t being, perhaps, the smartest person if you don’t take care of your family when you’re able to.” — Benson Henderson