Benson Henderson is really a unique fighter and one of those guys that is incredibly easy to find yourself rooting for as he fights. Sure, in his post-fight interviews he tends to get a bit preachy and weird, no one will ever give him an “amen,” either, but as an athlete he is still quite remarkable. There aren’t a whole hell of a lot of MMA fighters out there who speak out about the use of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) in MMA, as it is sort of this hush-hush topic that everyone is afraid to speak up about. Most of the fighters who are advocates for more rigorous testing are usually guys like Roy Nelson who you can tell doesn’t touch them, but with a lot of other fighters it is never clear who has or hasn’t taken them or who is keeping quiet in case they feel that they need them in the future.
So for a current UFC Champion in his prime like Benson Henderson to come out and publicly talk about how he understands why guys do it, but they should know that its wrong, it is a breath of fresh air. He talks about how it is clearly illegal and that there should be more random and rigorous testing to try to catch cheaters. For right now most fighters get caught after they’ve fought and the damage has been done, random, out-of-competition testing could catch cheaters before they fight and not put fighters in harm’s way.
Benson Henderson defends his UFC Lightweight Championship against former Strikeforce Lightweight Champion Gilbert Melendez at UFC on Fox 7 on April 20th. [source]