Fight Study 73 – Bendo and the Beast (transcript) (Patreon)

This weekend marked the second time since the pandemic that the UFC and Bellator held back to back events. Bellator kicked things off on August 7th with Bellator 243: Chandler vs Henderson 2 and the UFC continued with UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Oleinik. With the NBA season heating up and MLB offering limited games, the sporting world almost feels like its back to normal. We’ve covered in previous episodes what it must be like to prepare and compete under pandemic circumstances, so we won’t rehash that conversation. Instead, I wanted to focus the conversation on what we consider to be a fighter’s “prime.”

First, let’s get to the fight itself. There isn’t much to say other than Chandler had a great game plan and caught Henderson early. To be sure, Henderson has lost before, but it’s only the second time in his career that he’s been knocked out. Chandler threw a rear kick to the body from orthodox and used this to reset his stance. Once his rear foot came down instead of going back to its usual position, Chandler was now in the southpaw stance and he wasted no time in throwing the 1-2. The left straight caught Henderson clean and knocked him down face first, and follow up punches from Chandler seemed almost unnecessary. Referee Dan Mirgliotta waved off the fight at 2:09 of the first round. How did Henderson get here?

Ben Henderson is a former champion in two major promotions, WEC and UFC. He’s defended both those belts and has defended the UFC lightweight belt the same number of times as BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar. His switch over to Bellator back in February 2016 was the first major free agent signing for the promotion under Scott Coker’s management. In a lot of ways, Henderson’s deal with ViacomCBS was ground-breaking for other fighters. Suddenly, they had another place that they could call home, or at the very least use as leverage against the UFC. After Henderson, we soon saw a trickle of fighters who signed up to be under Bellator’s banner: Rory MacDonald, Ryan Bader, Lorenz Larkin, Lyoto Machida, Gegard Mousasi, and Cris Cyborg. Of the six names I just listed, four of them ended up with championship gold at their new promotion. Lorenz Larkin and Lyoto Machida have yet to win world titles over at Bellator. Henderson falls in the same category.

Henderson used to be able to contend with the best of lightweights in both WEC and UFC. He went from being able to take Jorge Masvidal all five rounds and choking Donald Cerrone in under two minutes to not being able to win regularly against top competition. It’s true that he was 2-2 before he switched over to Bellator, but he was still considered by many to be near the peak of his abilities and definitely had another championship run in him. Despite the 5-4 record in his 9 fights at Bellator, it’s arguable that if you take out his TKO win via injury over Patricio Pitbull Freire and a split decision win over Adam Piccolotti, he would be 3-6. Not exactly the kind of resume a former world champion should have.

The obvious and easiest explanation is simple: Henderson got old. He’s 36 years old in a division where the young man’s speed is favored over old man’s strength. Speed kills, but it’s also the first thing to go. Every single one of Henderson’s losses in Bellator has been to someone that’s younger than him.  A year or two might not seem like a huge difference, but it’s essentially that much more damage your body can accumulate over time. How many times have we seen fighters lose a single fight and never look the same? It happens often enough in this sport, so how can we not expect the same results from a bad year or two? Some might argue that Henderson never looked the same after the beating he received from his Bellator debut against Andrey Koreshkov. He made his promotional debut AND fought for the welterweight championship at the same time. Mind you, this was just the second time he’s competed in the weight class. It took him two years to get a win streak going, and it had to be against lesser competition than he’s used to.

Tying into the age factor, it’s also true that Henderson has been fighting at a high level for a long time, it makes sense that he’ll taper off at some point. He’s at the point in his 30’s where he’s closer to his 40’s than the other way around. He’s prepared for 11 title fights in his career. This doesn’t mean he’s competed all five rounds for every single title match, but imagine the training camps he’s put his body through to get himself ready for a possible 25 minutes of action. You can’t blame him if at some point, the body breaks down and the wear and tear becomes too much.

Another thing to consider is that Henderson’s been around for a while. He made his pro debut back in 2006 and has been at this for nearly a decade and a half. The footage of him that’s available at the click of your fingertips is unimaginable. Every coach that has Ben Henderson to prepare for can take some comfort in knowing that just by looking online, they’ll be able to find all his major fights. The last two fighters to beat Henderson are Michael Chandler and Patricky Freire, and they are coached by Henri Hooft and Eric Albarracin, respectively. Both have coached UFC champions, it’s silly to think that they wouldn’t have what it takes to break down other top tier talent.

Even though he left the promotion on a win, it was a close split decision against Masvidal, who filled in on less than two weeks’ notice. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come, that Henderson could barely eek by against a late replacement fighter. But then again, Henderson has been winning close split decision fights all his careers. At this point, it’s almost become a signature of his. If there is one thing newer fans should learn from Henderson when it comes to a fighter signing with another promotion, it’s that they should consider the timing of the move.       

When fighters switch promotions at the peak of their achievements, it’s not often we see them continue that success in their new homes. When it does happen, we consider it rare. There have been plenty of busts along the way. It’s not that the hype isn’t real, it’s just that a deeper dive into their skillsets might be required more than just a cursory look at their achievements. Alistair Overeem, Ben Askren, Hector Lombard, Mirko Cro-Cop, Will Brooks, and Gilbert Melendez all left their previous promotions as champions and never made a serious dent in the UFC. Lombard and Brooks in particular left Bellator and both signed lucrative deals with the UFC by flexing their status as world champions in another promotion. They both ended up leaving with losing records and are now competing at regional circuits. Does this mean that Bellator fighters are no good? Not at all. Eddie Alvarez is another Bellator champion and he’s beaten title holders in every major MMA promotion, so the level of talent is clearly not the problem.  

As mentioned earlier, when someone is signed at the peak of their achievements, it’s hard for them to keep their winning ways in a different environment. Employees switch companies all the time and even if they have the same job function, we’re not shocked when we find out that maybe they can’t find the same level of success. Should we be surprised that fighters aren’t any different? Overeem won every title available to him in Japan before continuing on his fight career in Strikeforce. When Strikeforce got bought out by the UFC, it seemed like a no-brainer that he was going to wreck shop and become champion. A TKO win over Brock Lesnar seemed to all but confirm that he would be able to handily beat Cain Velasquez. People want to point out that Bigfoot Silva and Travis Browne “exposed” Overeem, but this was a guy that had already lost 12 times before he made it to the UFC! He’s not a terrible fighter, but why is anyone surprised when they find out that someone with almost 50 MMA fights at that point is prone to getting hurt and beaten? On the other hand, you have someone like Israel Adesanya that comes along and fights for the title within five UFC fights, and he looks smooth and undamaged for someone that has EIGHTY kickboxing matches. In short, don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Especially because over at UFC’s Fight Night, Derrick Lewis was out there proving that age is nothing for heavyweights.

Lewis started off the fight strong, swinging hooks against Oleinik, and literally tossed him around and slammed him against the fence. When he clinched up and stayed tied up for too long, Oleinik was able to escape his hips back to one side and isolated Lewis’s left leg. From there, he used his left arm to push off against Lewis’s knee, and with an underhook secured on the opposite side, he worked his way out from having Lewis on top of him and transitioned that nicely to get up and grab a single leg against him. From there, Oleinik threw every suffocating scarf hold choke and neck crank he had against Lewis, but Lewis did enough to survive. Once round two started, the opportunity for Lewis to turn the fight presented itself.

Earlier this year, Oleinik faced off against Maurice Greene, and the first round went similar to the one against Lewis. Greene defended all of Oleinik’s submissions (including his infamous Ezekiel choke) and survived round 1. Oleinik spent so much time on those choke holds early on that by the time the second round rolled around, his arms were limp and low to his side. Greene almost knocked him out cold in the second round, but Oleinik was able to pull off the victory with an armbar shortly thereafter. Lewis is a much heavier hitter than Greene, and no one should sleep on his ability to turn the fight around. Lewis was getting soundly out-struck by Alexander Volkov but knocked him out with less than 20 seconds on the fight clock remaining.

In this fight against Oleinik, Lewis used a flying knee into a right hook. It might seem wild, but this is a favorite of heavyweight kickboxer Errol Zimmerman, who throws both the knee and hook from the same side. Clearly it works, and you have to possess a certain amount of athleticism to pull it off. Just because Lewis has a softer midsection doesn’t mean he’s not a serious athlete. Don’t go off just by his interviews, Lewis should not be taken lightly. Heavyweights just seem to be at a point where it doesn’t matter how old you are. Everyone is so big and has power, that even if you’re over 40, as long as you have a signature weapon, you can be a major player in the division.

In conclusion, where do the main event fighters from Bellator and the UFC go from here? It’s a bit tricky. Henderson is clearly at later stages of his career, and just can’t seem to win anymore against top contenders. If he still plans on fighting against the Chandlers and Pitbull brothers of the world, he might have a hard time capturing a third belt. He might not have been able to win a belt in every major promotion, but he’s already been a world champion many times over in two separate organizations. With the birth of another child (four total), and all the damage he’s gotten from a 14-year career, what more does he have to prove?

For Chandler, this fulfilled the last fight on his Bellator contract. He might very well find himself in the very same spot that Henderson did when he beat Masvidal on the last fight of his UFC contract. Yes, he can use this win as a bargaining chip to get the best offer possible from other promotions, but there’s always the risk that he’s not as good as he used to be either. The UFC lightweight division is a shark tank, and over at One Championship, Eddie Alvarez found out the hard way that 155 wasn’t going to be a walk in the park either. Still, here’s to hoping that Chandler is able to do what’s best for him and his family.

Over at the UFC, the win over Oleinik puts Lewis on a three-fight win streak. In heavyweight terms, he’s right in line for another title shot. So far, his first and only title shot opportunity came at UFC 230, where the promotion cobbled together the Cormier vs Lewis main event when the originally planned Valentina Shevchenko vs Sijara Eubanks fight got scrapped. If Lewis is able to continue getting matched up against strikers, there’s always a good chance that he can win the fights. Against wrestlers, that chance does drop quite a bit. For Oleinik, this continues his streak of winning two fights before losing the third. He’s an interesting submission threat and among the oldest in the division with a total of 74 fights. He’s had more matches than both Ben Henderson and Michael Chandler combined! The expiration date for heavyweight fighters is later than most, so its possible that he competes for another 3 years easily. Just like Lewis, if he’s able to string together that elusive 3 fight win streak, he too might find himself in line for a possible title shot. Anything’s possible in MMA these days.