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As Benson Henderson nears the twilight of a career that has seen him compete at the highest level of mixed martial arts for the past 13 years, he has little—if anything—left to prove.
Still, the 38-year-old Henderson says the fire that drives him to compete burns as brightly as ever, even if some of the extracurricular activities that surround fighting might not be his favorite part of the game.
"The passion part, the desire to compete, the desire to lay it all on the line and go get my hand raised, that's the easy part," Henderson tells MMA Underground. "The hard part can be all the extra activities—the this, the that, the media obligations, the interviews. I mean, it's not all bad, and if you want to be a champion, if you want to be at that level, it's something you have to deal with, but that's the hard stuff.
"For me personally, the hard stuff is not fighting. That's easy. Being a competitor? Let's go compete. Let's go do it. No problem. Easy. Any day, any time, no problem. But the setup for it, the interviews, 'OK, now we're going to do a photoshoot. We're going to do videos, and we need you to take time off. We need you to take time away from the kids and go do this and go do that. Oh, we need you to come over here,' that can be the real trial, the real hard part."
Courtesy of Bellator
