Double play: Henderson retains UFC title, gets engaged
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Those few anxiety-filled moments before a man pops the question to the woman with whom he hopes to spend the rest of his life often seem like hours for nervous guys hoping for a positive response.
Imagine how it must have been for Benson Henderson on Saturday night.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight champion had just finished a grueling 25-minute battle with Gilbert Melendez in the main event of the UFC on Fox 7 card at HP Pavilion and was awaiting the scores in a bout that could have gone either way.
He also had been planning to propose to girlfriend Maria Magana in the event of a victory, making the anxiety even more excruciating.
Henderson got the desired result on both fronts.
He retained the lightweight belt by winning a split decision and immediately dropped to a knee and found Magana, who happily accepted.
“My heart was going like a butterfly,” he said.
Melendez, a longtime Strikeforce champion, came out strong in his much-awaited UFC debut. He pressured Henderson throughout the opening round and established early on that he was a legitimate contender.
Henderson settled in and slowly found a rhythm. Each of the final four rounds was close, as evidenced by the wide discrepancies on the scorecards. Melendez won the first and Henderson the third on all three cards. All of the other rounds found the judges in disagreement, but it all added up to a 49-48, 48-49, 49-48 win for Henderson.
“I’m just heartbroken, bro. Heartbroken. That’s it,” Melendez said. “I thought it was all going to come down to how they saw the last round, and I think I won the fifth. I knew I had the first two rounds, and I may have taken my foot off the gas pedal a bit. I thought I turned it back up in the fifth, though.”
Henderson credited the challenger for the valiant effort.
“Hats off to him. He’s a great fighter. I’m not going to take anything away from him and say it was just me and I started slow. He made me start slow,” Henderson said. “He did a good job early of going forward and making me back up, but I thought after that I came forward and made him back up.”
Then it was time to find the ring and locate his girlfriend, who had entered the cage.
“There’s a lot more important things in life than fighting,” Henderson said. “Fighting pays the bills, and I enjoy what I do, but there’s always bigger things in life. I’m very aware of how small fighting matters in the grand scheme of things.”
He said he had been thinking about proposing for a while but didn’t decide until earlier in the day on Saturday.
“It was time to man up,” he said.
He hadn’t considered a backup plan in the event that he lost the fight but says he probably would have had to wait.
“That wouldn’t have been a good look,” he said.
Neither was the heavyweight bout between Daniel Cormier and Las Vegan Frank Mir.
Cormier, a two-time Olympic wrestler and the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix champion, grinded out a win by unanimous decision.
“I’ve always laughed at the thought of ‘UFC jitters,’ but, man, I was nervous today,” Cormier said. “I kind of laid an egg a little bit. I didn’t fight the fight I wanted to, and I got tired, and I’ve never felt that before in a fight. I think that was just nerves. It wasn’t ideal, but if you can feel bad and beat a guy that’s a two-time champion, you’ve got to see the positive in that.”
Josh Thomson knocked out Nate Diaz in the second round of a lightweight bout with a head kick followed by a series of punches. A towel came in from Diaz’s corner just before the referee called a stop to the action.
Welterweight Matt Brown won his fifth straight fight with a second-round stoppage of Jordan Mein to round out the main card. Top contenders Chad Mendes and Joseph Benavidez picked up impressive wins to highlight the preliminary card.
Mendes likely earned another shot at the featherweight belt with a 1:08 knockout of Darren Elkins, and his teammate at Team Alpha Male, Joseph Benavidez, could be next in line for a flyweight title shot after a two-round pummeling of Darren Uyenoyama. Also, Las Vegan Anthony Njokuani knocked out lightweight Roger Bowling in the second round.
Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.