It has to be hard being so smooth. There Dethrone, I just gave you a new slogan to put on all of your consistently awesome Ben Henderson shirts. You can thank me whenever you want. According to this interview by MMAWeekly, before Ben Henderson was draped in some of the best designed shirts in MMA he was scraping by and paying his dues by cleaning toilets and working non stop for years. That sounds almost exactly like Zeus’ life story, just in a completely different context.
Damon Martin just sat down with Ben Henderson a few weeks before his title shot against Frankie Edgar in Japan and reflected on his past and how far he’s come.
“It’s a pretty big difference from five years ago cleaning out the toilets, taking out the garbage, and going on Starbucks runs for the owner and his wife. Pretty big difference, and I’m happy for it,”
“I was pretty blessed with my situation when I came out here to Arizona. The old owner whose name was Jason Beck, he asked John Crouch, who he was friends with from back in the old school Gracie Academy days, he knew John had some fighters in Denver and he asked if he and some of his fighters would like to move to Arizona and just train and fight full time. So early on in my career I was able to move out here to Arizona and just train full time,”
“I was sponsored from The Lab. I got like a couple hundred dollars a month, just barely enough to survive, but I cleaned toilets, mopped mats, do all the odd ends sort of jobs. So I was able to train full time, so I’d train in the mornings, train in the afternoons, but in between I’d clean up, I’d teach the kids’ classes, clean up at night also.”
“Going from that to gym owner to fighting for the title, it’s something I am very excited for.
I can’t think of a more clear FOTY candidate than Frankie/Bendo that’s coming to us in the near future. February 25th can’t come soon enough.
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