One Year After UFC on Fox 1 Snub, Benson Henderson “Redeemed” with Main Event Status

When Benson Henderson steps into the Octagon for his bout at UFC on Fox 5, it will be almost exactly one year since he didn’t get to fight on the UFC on Fox 1 card.

Well, technically, Henderson and opponent Clay Guida were on the undercard for the UFC on Fox 1 show, but despite an outpouring from fans and media alike, the lightweight bout was shifted to Facebook so the focus could remain solely on the heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

What resulted that night was a knockout in the main event with the fight only going about a minute, while Henderson and Guida put on a 15-minute classic, back-and-forth battle that had people screaming “Fight of the Year” up to that point in 2011.

At the time, Henderson didn’t express too much displeasure in the decision the UFC made to put his co-main event fight with Guida on Facebook as opposed to Fox, but now, a year later, on the precipice of headlining a Fox show with the UFC lightweight title on the line, he can look back, reflect, and admit there was a part of him that was sad about the whole situation.

“Absolutely. It’s nice cause there was so much hype about the first UFC card on Fox, first UFC card on main TV, on free TV. There was so much hype around that, there was so much talk about it, and then when it came around I wasn’t on Fox,” Henderson told MMAWeekly Radio recently.

“Clay and I weren’t aired on Fox, so I was sad. I won’t lie, I was very sad about that.”

There is no way to predict how good or bad a fight will be before it happens, but most looked at the match-up between Henderson and Guida and the odds were that it was likely to be a closely contested and highly explosive fight. It certainly lived up to the billing, but Henderson doesn’t live in regret.

He didn’t voice his displeasure at that time, but now he does feel a little vindicated getting the main event slot for UFC on Fox 5.

“It’s definitely cool. I like that we are the main event and that especially from the first Fox card, I was very sad about that. I didn’t complain; I didn’t say anything. I was like cool, I’m not going to be shown on Fox; alright, sounds good. I’m not going to throw a hissy fit; it is what it is. I’m a company guy and if that’s what it is, that’s what it is,” said Henderson.

“Now it’s nice to be redeemed and be the main event.”

It will be only the second time a UFC title has been defended on Fox, and Henderson is honored to be a part of it. Nothing has been handed to him since he started fighting, and now this is just one more thing he can sit back, enjoy, and know he earned.

There’s only one thing that would make UFC on Fox 5 a little sweeter.

“It was nice kind of being redeemed. Now, Nate and I are headlining the Fox card. The only thing that could make it better would be having heavyweights be the co-main event,” Henderson said.

“That would be a freaking feather in my cap. I would love that.”

Check out Benson Henderson’s entire interview with MMAWeekly Radio here.