Ben Henderson Says 2017 May Be His Final Year In MMA

Ben Henderson is a former UFC Lightweight Champion and if he can defeat Michael Chandler at Bellator 165, he will become the Bellator MMA Lightweight Champion as well.

Henderson, despite the fact that he may enter 2017 as a champion, says that next year may be his final year when it comes to MMA competition.

“It’s looking that way,” Henderson said to MMA Junkie. “We’ll see how it all plays out, but I do want to retire when I’m somewhat younger and be able to speak coherently to my grandchildren. The other thing was enlisting into military of some sort. I think serving is a lost art, I think seriously we are lost today – our society, our country. Something is wrong with us. We are jacked up in the head. We celebrate morons who are solely focused on social media, and when I raise my kids, I want to stress to them the importance of doing real stuff for our country. Being a good person. That would be me going out of my way to do something for my country and raise my kids and say, hey, look at this. Here’s something I did for this country.”

Henderson has no idea what he would be doing upon entering the military, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to help his country.

“I’d do whatever,” he said. “If it was cleaning the window, but I’m cleaning the window for my country, sure, no problem. It would be kind of boring and sucky, but I’m a humble man. If it happens to be something on the front lines, that’s not ideal, but I’m cool with that, as well. This is my own personal thing that I’ve wanted to do for years now. Hopefully, before I get too old and they say no to me outright, I can do that.”

Bellator 165 takes place on Saturday, November 19 from the SAP Center in San Jose, California with Michael Chandler and Ben Henderson headlining.