0:00
LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest trends
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and insights in your field.
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We cannot stop your co-worker from tapping her pencil.
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LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals.
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LinkedIn is the network that works for you.
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This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:53
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:55
Let's get into it.
0:57
All right, guys.
0:58
We got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:59
He is Dan Henderson.
1:00
So he is a retired MMA fighter who previously fought in the UFC pride and strike force.
1:05
So he was actually the first fighter guys in MMA history to be a two division champion
1:09
of a major MMA promotion while he simultaneously held the pride middleweight championship and
1:14
welterweight championship belt.
1:15
So middleweight at the time was 205 and welterweight was 183.
1:19
And so he was also the last light heavyweight champion for strike force in their history.
1:23
So this dude has wins over guys like Fedor, Millionenko, Vanderlei Silva, Shogun Hua,
1:29
Vitor, Belfort, Rich Franklin, Michael Bizbing, Big Nog, Henzo Gracie, Carlos Newton, and
1:34
many, many others.
1:35
And in addition to that, most people kind of forget the guy was a two time Olympian.
1:38
So he represented the United States as a member of the Greco Roman wrestling team in 1992
1:43
in Barcelona in 1996 in Atlanta.
1:45
So we talk about a whole bunch of stuff in this podcast.
1:49
And one of the things we talk about is, I guess one of the highlights of his career,
1:53
which would be his fight against Shogun Huad UFC 139.
1:57
That fight was actually inducted into UFC's fight wing of their Hall of Fame.
2:02
And so that's kind of his highlight.
2:04
And in addition to that, he's got other things he's doing now in business.
2:08
He's kind of looking to open up a brewery and restaurant and doing some things.
2:11
He has a gym where he trains fighters and he also he also just released this book here.
2:16
It's called Hendo, the American athlete.
2:18
And so this book is really a breakdown of his career and his life.
2:23
So gets into his early life in his childhood, it gets into his wrestling career and everything
2:28
that he went through, trying to become an Olympian and then trying to win a gold medal.
2:32
And then we get into his MMA career as well in the book.
2:35
But in this interview today, we kind of follow the same cadence as the book.
2:38
We talk about what it was like growing up with a very athletic and tough father and an athletic
2:43
and more naturally athletic older brother, why he was drawn to wrestling.
2:47
Why Greco?
2:48
When did he realize he had what it took to potentially be an Olympian?
2:51
Okay.
2:52
Now he's an Olympian, you know, how does he get to becoming a gold medalist and he didn't
2:55
win the gold medal?
2:56
So how does he deal with that?
2:57
And then his trajectory changing and becoming an MMA fighter, right?
3:01
But he's fighting MMA in the early days in the 90s where you're having to fight multiple
3:04
times in one night.
3:05
There's not always a lot of money.
3:07
He was doing that while still trying to be an Olympian and make the Olympic squad and do
3:11
all those different things.
3:12
But he burns the ships at the age of 30 and we talk about that and he goes full bore into
3:17
MMA.
3:18
And guys, we go through his, his, you know, times in his career, we had to fight three
3:22
times in one night.
3:23
We talk about what he did in pride.
3:25
His first fight in pride was against Van der Le Silva and that was his first loss.
3:29
We talk about how he got the nickname, the H bomb for his right hand.
3:32
We talk about when he wins the, you know, 2005 welterweight grand prix becomes a world
3:36
champion.
3:37
We talk about when he gets his second bell and then we break down all these fights that
3:40
you guys would remember his fight against Michael Bisming, which is still to this day.
3:44
My favorite knockout of all time is when he knocked out Michael Bisming, a UFC 100 greatest
3:49
KO probably in UFC history, but then we talk about when he fought Fedor and when he fought
3:53
Shogun and they had, you know, one of the greatest fights of all time, the fight I mentioned
3:57
that's been inducted in the hall of fame.
3:59
We talked about the end of his career and fighting Michael Bisming again and retiring.
4:03
And then we also talked about his faith because he mentions a few times in the book, just
4:07
very little things about his faith.
4:09
And so I asked him a few questions about that and kind of put him on the spot.
4:12
So that's towards the end of the interview.
4:14
So you guys should definitely stick around and check that part of it out.
4:17
But then at the end, I asked him some kind of rapid fire lightning round questions about
4:21
MMA, you know, if he could only leave one fight for humanity, which one of his fights
4:25
would he leave if he could get one fight back?
4:27
What's the number one fight?
4:28
You know, what was it like fighting against all those roided up fighters in pride, especially
4:32
and then also in UFC before he saw it came in guys, we went everywhere in this conversation.
4:36
I'm so, so thrilled that he spent so much time with us and was so patient with everything.
4:40
We actually had to reschedule this once because, you know, some things got messed up that was
4:43
outside of both of ours are controls, but he's, he's a stand up dude.
4:47
He's a very awesome guy to talk to and I just, again, he's one of my favorite fighters of
4:52
all time.
4:53
So I feel thrilled that I got the chance to talk to him.
4:54
So I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
4:56
So without further ado, let's get into it.
4:59
Dan Henderson, welcome to adult a life of man's podcast.
5:02
Well, thank you, I'm excited to have you on.
5:06
I will tell you, I forgot one thing that I left downstairs, but you were the inspiration
5:11
behind my jujitsu mouth guard because it's red, white and blue, just like what you wore
5:15
back in pride.
5:16
So I was going to toss that in, but it would have made people hard to hear me for the rest
5:19
of the interview.
5:20
So we don't got to do all that, but we're going to dive into a lot of your story and
5:23
talk about a lot of different things today.
5:25
You really go in a lot of detail in your new book, Hindu, the American athlete.
5:29
It's a fantastic book.
5:30
I just finished it last week.
5:32
So we're not really going to be digging into everything because you do such a good job
5:35
detailing it in the book, but let's just go ahead and start in your early life.
5:38
So let's talk about growing up, Dan Henderson, you know, you had to kind of a rough and tough
5:43
father who was a really good athlete in really good shape.
5:46
You had an older brother that was seen kind of as like the, you know, the natural stud
5:50
athlete of the family, but let's just start with the childhood.
5:53
We'll work from there.
5:54
Yeah.
5:55
I mean, that's pretty much it.
5:58
It's, you know, when I, I think when I first started wrestling, I didn't, you know, I just,
6:04
my dad had brought me to a wrestling tournament.
6:06
I don't think I'd ever been to practice before.
6:10
And I think the first time I went, I was just watching and watching my brother wrestle and,
6:16
and you know, I think he got beat pretty good by, by this other kid that was phenomenal.
6:23
And I didn't know what to think of it.
6:27
Then the next time I went, I was the one wrestling also and, and, you know, and I think it was
6:32
after that, we started doing, you know, the practices and starting learning moves.
6:37
But I was five years old, so I mean, it's all just fun at that point.
6:42
Right.
6:43
But yeah, I mean, it was just my dad kind of pushing, pushing us into wrestling and, and
6:52
you know, we played other sports also, but wrestling is kind of what I gravitated towards
6:57
as I get older.
6:58
Okay.
6:59
So let's talk about that gravitation.
7:00
Cause I just talked about recently how I played baseball and wrestled growing up, but way
7:05
more baseball than wrestling, but baseball practice was boring.
7:09
It was, you know, you did, you took outfield, you know, you went and took your cuts.
7:13
You had to put two buns down and then you got your 10 cuts and you did some drills and all
7:16
that.
7:17
But, you know, we would complain if we had to run foul polls at the end of practice, right?
7:20
You know, but then you go to wrestling practice and you feel like you're going to die every
7:24
single day.
7:25
You don't, but you just feel like you're going to die.
7:27
It's this competition and they're pushing you at the end of class and you're burning
7:29
out and all that stuff.
7:31
So a lot of kids, especially now Dan, they're going to gravitate towards the easier sport.
7:35
Now baseball is really, really hard.
7:36
It takes a lot of skill, but you say that you kind of more so gravitated towards the
7:40
wrestling side.
7:41
Well, why do you think that is?
7:43
Uh, I think a lot of it had to do with, you know, a coach, a coach's opinion.
7:50
If one kid's better than the other kid in baseball, you don't, you don't really go head
7:55
to head so much and, you know, and until you get to high school, most of the time, you
8:02
know, the coach is definitely probably in high school also, but they definitely, you
8:09
know, kind of favor some of the kids that, or maybe their friends, kids or whatever else.
8:16
But you know, I just didn't like that.
8:18
I knew that I was better than some kids, but I just wasn't playing and wrestling.
8:24
I didn't have that problem if I, if I beat the kid, then I made the team or, you know,
8:29
where we both go to the tournament and I'm the one that wins type of thing.
8:33
So I had, it's not like you're sitting on the bench in wrestling based on the fact that
8:42
somebody's friends with your, you know, the coach one with baseball, there's no way to
8:48
settle who's better because you can't both bat at the same time and to hit against the
8:53
same pitcher, same pitches and all that type of thing.
8:55
But in the room, it's like, well, we've got two kids at this weight.
8:59
So y'all are going to wrestle three times and first one to win two, like you're, you're
9:04
on the team.
9:05
You got the spot.
9:06
And so growing up in Oklahoma, you obviously are familiar and you get a lot of that.
9:10
Now there's a very interesting quote from your book that I think kind of leads into this
9:13
discussion about everything, but it's this quote here.
9:17
Let's just say if it wasn't for my dad and Bob, Dan Henderson wouldn't be who he is today.
9:23
So the Bob that you're referring to in your book, and you talk a whole lot about him in
9:26
the book.
9:27
So we'll just be brief with him today.
9:28
You're talking about Bob Anderson.
9:30
So tell us about Bob and tell us about why the combo of Mr. Henderson and Bob Anderson kind
9:37
of led to you going on the pathway that you did.
9:41
You know, Bob was just one of those guys, kind of an old school coach that made you grind
9:48
and practice, made you do a lot of extra work and would sit down on, you know, before practice
9:56
or in between practices on Sunday and give a little mini sermon, you know, right in the
10:05
wrestling room for us and then we'd go and eat lunch and go have another practice.
10:12
And when I was growing up, when I first met Bob, it was, you know, we used to go to wrestling
10:19
tournaments every weekend for the kids, you know, the kind of local wrestling tournaments
10:24
and you wrestle the same kids almost every week.
10:28
And Bob had an idea to invite all the best kids to a training camp every weekend Friday
10:36
to Sunday, and he had a camp Pendleton parents would drop their kids off on a Friday afternoon,
10:47
pick them up Sunday night, you know, and I think it was like nine bucks included meals
10:54
and everything else.
10:55
Because we stayed, you know, in like the old school Quants and Hunt barracks and ran
11:02
to chow hall and did all that, you know, so it was kind of fun as a kid to do that.
11:09
But I mean, we're working, we're practicing three, four times a day.
11:13
We had two practices on Friday night and probably four on Saturday, three on Sunday.
11:20
Every weekend we would do that.
11:22
So we'd wrestle with these, the best kids in the area nonstop, not just one or two matches,
11:31
but you know, 10 practices in a weekend.
11:35
Hey, guys, real quick.
11:37
So just this morning, I was at the doctor and all my way out the door, I kind of struck
11:40
up a conversation with them because this doctor used to try to convince me all the time that
11:44
I needed to stop eating red meat.
11:45
He had been convinced that red meat was the devil and it was terrible for you.
11:49
And then over time as he was not having red meat in his diet, he was kind of suffering
11:53
from that.
11:54
And so he is all in now.
11:55
And so he's trying to go carnivore like I am, but he and I were both kind of lamenting
11:59
and worrying about the fact that, man, we don't know where to get high quality beef.
12:02
We're surrounded by all these cattle operations here in Oklahoma and there's also these online
12:06
ones, but you don't really know which ones to trust.
12:09
And so I've been looking for a partner in the cattle operation business and I found one
12:13
and I'm very excited to tell you about them.
12:15
That is why I want to introduce you to the official beef delivery partner of Undaunted
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Life, my friends at Primal Beef.
12:22
So Primal Beef is a new cattle operation owned and operated by Sean Glass.
12:26
So he's a retired Navy SEAL that served with Jocko Willink and Jocko is also a partner
12:30
in Primal Beef.
12:31
So what makes Primal Beef different from all the other fly by night beef delivery service
12:36
companies here in America, it's a combo of the following.
12:39
So they have all American black Angus cattle.
12:41
The beef comes from one single farm and that's in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley.
12:46
The beef is also all natural.
12:48
It has no hormones ever, no antibiotics ever, no mRNA ever.
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And after slaughter, the beef is dry aged, then it is hand cut by artisan butchers and
12:57
then flash frozen to ensure that it maintains tenderness, marbling and flavor.
13:02
So whenever you open the package, you're not getting an old crappy piece of meat.
13:05
It is so absolutely perfect.
13:06
And here's another cool thing.
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13:42
Well, I mean, you hear about that now, Dan, but when you were doing it, like the specialization
13:48
stuff was kind of rare because now you have parents that are like, okay, my kid's six.
13:52
So we have to pick his sport.
13:53
Okay, you're going to be a golfer.
13:55
You're going to be a baseball player.
13:56
You're going to be a basketball player.
13:57
And then you basically force them to do that only thing.
14:00
That's what I liked, you know, reading in your story, reading in your memoir about, okay,
14:04
you were playing all these other sports.
14:06
Anyway, it's interesting because I try to explain to people how some people have a natural ability
14:12
to strike.
14:13
Obviously they have to learn how to strike, but they have a natural ability and it typically
14:16
comes from your ability to throw.
14:17
And so you talk about playing third base and being able to throw and I played outfield
14:21
and I had a pretty good arm.
14:23
And so then you have these guys that only wrestle their entire life and they have no transferable
14:27
athletic skills because they didn't play anything else.
14:29
And so they can't shoot a basketball.
14:31
They can't hit a baseball and all that, but you kind of had that well roundedness.
14:34
But for you, it was a very interesting thing because you weren't just good at wrestling.
14:39
You were a lead at wrestling and we're talking about not just the country, but the world.
14:43
And so at some point, I don't know whether it was you that realized it or whether it
14:47
was your dad or Bob or there's some combination of the three or other people.
14:51
It's like you potentially have what it takes to be an Olympian someday.
14:54
And so take me, take me down the road.
14:57
And again, you talk about a lot in the book.
14:58
So we're not going to get into all the detail.
14:59
You got to pick up the new book, Hindu, but take us through the, the pathway, like when
15:04
do you figure out like, Oh, I could actually maybe do this wrestling thing and then start
15:07
working your way towards doing that.
15:09
Yeah, I don't know, like I said, every weekend we were down there, you know, unless we were
15:16
going to a big wrestling tournament.
15:18
And I think in 1984, and my dad had coached wrestling teams over, you know, kind of like
15:27
exchange programs where they'd go to Europe and they'd take a bunch of high school age
15:31
kids and get to wrestle over there and kind of get to see a different part of the world
15:37
at the same time. And so he kind of had friends, the other coaches from Sweden and Amsterdam.
15:45
And when the 84 Olympics were in LA, which was, you know, an hour and a half from where
15:50
I lived, a bunch of those people came to watch some of the watch of the Olympics and watch
15:59
the wrestling at the Olympics.
16:01
So I got to go and, you know, it was a pretty neat experience to watch that happen.
16:09
And I think that's when the bug got in me and, you know, I was 14 years old at that point.
16:18
And the very next Olympic trials, I tried to make the team and got my ass beat pretty
16:26
bad in the, I made it to the kind of the final Olympic trials, but got, got smoked pretty
16:33
bad. I think I got ticked twice and was done. So within that, that after that Olympic trials
16:43
in 1988, I, which is the year I graduated high school, I, you know, went to college
16:51
at wrestler Cal State Fullerton. But at the same time, I was started going over to Russia
16:57
to train and then had an opportunity to drop out after two years of college drop out and,
17:04
you know, try to make the 92 Olympic team and go and wrestle in Europe most of the time
17:12
and a lot of trips to Russia. So that's pretty much, we had, you know, my coach, Bob, had
17:18
gotten a sponsor and we went over, I dropped out of school and went over and wrestled
17:24
in Europe for probably six months out of the year, I was gone wrestling and made the Olympic
17:31
team the very next Olympics one that that's one of my favorite parts of the book is where
17:37
you detail what you had to go through in the different tournaments and what you had to go
17:43
through in the trials. And then also detailing how you performed at the games because you
17:46
were a two time Olympian and you, you break down each match. It's not, you know, like
17:50
a volume of how you break down the match, but you do kind of break down each match and
17:54
kind of where you were at mentally. But obviously you had the goal of standing at the top of
17:58
the podium and hearing the national anthem with the gold medal around your neck and that
18:01
just never happened for you. But I mean, being an Olympic wrestler for the United States
18:07
wrestling team with Greco Roman and representing United States was it was a huge deal regardless.
18:13
And how do you, I don't know, how do I guess do you balance that, you know, life's goal
18:18
of wanting to win the gold medal and not attaining it, but also being one of the very, very few
18:23
people to ever do what you've done and to make two Olympic teams back to back.
18:27
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously I still had that goal after after I didn't get a medal
18:34
at the first Olympics, I had that goal and continued to wrestle. And I think I had gotten
18:42
up like a reconstructive shoulder surgery, you know, a year after those Olympics in Barcelona.
18:49
And I had gone back to ASU. I got record while I was at the Olympics, a new wrestling coach
18:55
at ASU, Leroy Smith, Oklahoma boy. Yeah, recruited me to go to ASU, my last year of eligibility.
19:05
So I went there and, you know, I wasn't overly fond of that of collegiate wrestling. The
19:12
style just was a little too slow. And yeah, I don't know, it just wasn't my thing. They
19:19
didn't, I like to score points and, you know, college wrestling wasn't that way. So yeah,
19:26
I just kept on going and still had that goal to win a medal, made the next Olympic teams
19:33
and still didn't achieve my goal. So I tried, tried for a third team but didn't make the
19:41
team. But the interesting thing about how you described in the book as well is most people
19:45
don't have the foggiest idea how Olympians are paid, how they take care of their training,
19:50
how they take care of their coaches, how they travel, what it's like in the Olympic village.
19:54
And so again, guys, you know, plugging Hindu, the book, you have to make sure you go and
19:58
check that out because you give some behind the scenes ideas of stuff that was just shocking
20:03
to read because, you know, you see the commercials and you see, you know, see the stuff on television
20:07
and then it's like, okay, it's not always that way for every Olympic athlete. But you're still
20:12
on this pathway to trying to develop yourself to where you can attain your goal being an Olympic
20:18
champion. And along the way, the trajectory of your life kind of took a turn and it really got
20:23
adjusted in May of 1997, when we get a call from your good buddy and fellow MMA legend Randy
20:29
Couture. And he says, Hey, Dan, I got a call from this fight promoter down in Brazil.
20:33
They're looking for another fighter at 175. So take us through that phone call, because obviously
20:39
you and Randy are good buddies. You've trained a lot in wrestling like you trust each other
20:43
implicitly. But he just gives you this random call. Hey, let's fly to another country. They
20:47
need another fighter. What was that like? Well, I mean, it was a little bit out of the blue,
20:53
because I mean, we had watched a number of the UFC's up before up to that point. And
20:59
thought that it would might be fun to try, but might be good at it. Not sure. Not sure about
21:06
going against those big 300 pounders. Randy was a little bit bigger than me. You know, like 15,
21:13
20 pounds, one way class up. So, you know, I guess it wasn't as bad for him. But
21:21
I didn't realize he had put an application in to fight in the UFC. And
21:25
you know, he got denied, I guess. But and then he decided he was going to do this tournament
21:32
down in Brazil, like a heavyweight tournament. And I believe random man was in that tournament as
21:39
well. And asked me if I wanted to do the lighterweight tournament, I said, sure, why not? You know,
21:45
and two weeks later, I was down in Brazil, fine. And so you're in Brazil, you're fine
21:50
a guy named Crezio De Sousa or De Sousa. And it's June 15th in 1997. And the thing is, is what
21:57
people don't understand about wrestlers as well as you're competing constantly. Competition is not
22:01
like a foreign concept to you. Like, yeah, you get nervous, but you're competing so often in the
22:06
room and at tournaments where it's like, if you get nervous all the time, like you'll just
22:09
spontaneously combust at some point, you're not going to make it. But I was interested to see in
22:14
your book, when you're talking about warming up for your very first MMA fight, how you weren't
22:19
really nervous. But then as you were getting closer to the cage and as you got in there, it's like,
22:23
Oh, crap. Like, what am I doing here? So just take us through your mindset of that first fight,
22:28
because it's like, it's, it's fighting, you know, wrestling is kind of like that. But it was just,
22:33
it just felt different to you, at least. Right. No, for sure. And, you know, when I got down to
22:40
Brazil, I was hearing stories about, you know, they have a big, they had, I don't know if it's
22:46
still a big rivalry, but you know, the, the, the striking guys against the grappling guys always
22:52
have kind of ugly and, and you know, in one of their MMA fights they had down there, somebody,
22:58
one of them got stabbed through the cage by somebody outside of the cage. And I'm hearing
23:03
stories and saying, holy [inaudible], you know, which I've never done this before. And it's a little bit,
23:11
it was a little bit unsettling. But you know, it's like going to watch the jaws and then going,
23:15
going out in the ocean, you know, right. It's a little nervous, but more than likely
23:20
the shirt's not going to be there. But yes, so, you know, I went out there and as I'm
23:28
getting into the cage and they're shutting the door, I'm like, what the [inaudible] did I get myself into?
23:34
Yeah, I mean, and I was, you know, referee said, you ready, you ready and go? And it all went away
23:41
real quick. You know, it was just instinctual after that. Hey, guys, real quick. The financial
23:47
status of most American families is not great. Doesn't that make you sad? It should make you sad.
23:51
And this is going to blow your mind. According to a recent Gallup poll, 88% of non-retired Americans
23:57
are very worried about having enough money to retire. And in that same poll, only 19% of
24:02
non-retired Americans even think that they will have enough money to retire comfortably. That's
24:07
19%. Not very much. So the thing is, though, the reality is much worse than that. So I've seen
24:13
estimates that claim that roughly 95% of non-retired Americans are currently not on track to be able
24:19
to retire 95%. And that is only concerning savings and investments. That doesn't even account for
24:24
people that are exposed to serious financial problems if they were to get too sick or to hurt
24:29
to work. And God forbid if they pass away without having a plan to keep their family financially whole,
24:34
it's just it's a crazy mess. And that's why I want to introduce you to my friend and my financial
24:39
advisor, Mike McCall with Bluecrest Financial. Mike can help you reach your chosen financial goals
24:45
by helping you develop an overall plan to ensure you and your family's financial success.
24:49
So whether it's IRAs, stocks, rollovers, life insurance, long-term care, disability income,
24:55
you name it, Mike can help you with it. Now, just imagine the peace of mind that comes with knowing
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25:04
Think about the legacy you could leave behind. And it's really going to be something that truly
25:08
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25:12
I trust Mike McCall with my financial planning. So I think you should give him a shot as well.
25:16
So to receive your free personal and or business financial assessment, go to the link in the show
25:22
notes in this episode to book a 15 minute zoom call with Mike. Do not try to piecemeal your own
25:28
financial plan. Let an expert help you again. Go to the link in the bio. Just click that link
25:33
in the bio to get your free assessment. Well, it's interesting to use the word instinctual.
25:37
I can't remember if you use that word in your book, but it's like, it's obvious that that's how
25:41
it went because you fought two times that day and you won the first fight TKO and the second fight
25:46
by a guillotine, which kind of leads me to the next thing. When people just get into MMA in the
25:51
last few years, like maybe they like Brock Lesnar or Ronda Rousey or Connor McGregor. And so they
25:55
just get into the sport. They don't really realize what it was like in the 90s and early 2000s.
26:00
And I guess the best way to talk about that would be going to when you fought for rings over in
26:05
Japan. So this is King of Kings in 1999. And so this is 99 2000. I can't remember what,
26:11
but it was a 32 man open weight class tournament. So in order to to win it all, you had to fight
26:18
and win three times in a single night. And again, you have guys that will go through a,
26:22
you know, they'll fight twice a year now and you're fighting, you know, three times in a night,
26:27
you got a bad knee injury in the second fight against big Nog, a fight that you won.
26:32
You know, you only had like 20 minutes of rest between your semi final and the final against
26:38
Babaloo. And it's just like, no, just take us through the old school mindset. Because I talked to
26:44
Nate Mark court about the same thing and people just don't quite get how insane it was for y'all
26:49
to perform at such a high level realizing that if you get into a dog fight in your first fight,
26:54
like the odds of you making it to the end of the night, just like basically went out the window.
26:59
So she's taken us through the early days, man. Well, yeah, I mean, that, and it was actually
27:05
five fights, but two of them were at the first event. And that was at the end of 99.
27:11
So they did two of the half the bracket went and thought twice in a night, then they did the
27:19
other half the bracket twice in a night. And then all eight guys that made it to the finals
27:24
fought and I fought three times in a night. And yeah, it was definitely tough. They did kind of
27:35
change the rules a little bit for the tournament. Basically, it was two, five minutes. It kind of
27:41
like to do the ultimate fighter two fives. And if it's a draw, that'll go a third. You know, and I did go
27:50
the distance with everybody in the tournament with with the exception of my first fight. And he was,
27:56
he was a Greco heavyweight 220 pound heavyweight wrestler that I think
28:07
meddled in the world. And yeah, he was the biggest pussy I thought out of all of them.
28:13
I don't know. I was shocked. I think I need him in the ribs. And he, you know, kind of went down and
28:20
tapped out fairly early. But yeah, and it was a, and I don't know if I said this in my book,
28:29
but I had never even sparred before. And that when I did that tournament, that was the first time I
28:34
sparred in practice or that, you know, I had already fought in that tournament Brazil already
28:41
fought in the UFC at that point. And then did this, this tournament and decided I should maybe try
28:49
sparring in practice. So that actually helped quite a bit. Yeah, I can imagine. Well, being
28:56
a wrestler and used to have wrestling five times in a weekend, you know, and not much break sometimes
29:04
is, is the reason why it was a lot easier for me to do those tournaments. You know, as my career,
29:12
and as I got older, you know, there's no way I wanted to do tournaments just because, you know,
29:18
the competition's a little bit steeper and guys are better and, and I was getting older. So those
29:26
recovery was, was huge in those tournaments. And yeah, I tore my knee up in the second fight that
29:33
night and had to reach deep to go out there 20 minutes later to fight Babaloo. Yeah,
29:40
it was just an insane, just looking at the names that you took on even early in your career. It's
29:45
just crazy. But at the time, people also to understand this, like there weren't MMA gyms
29:51
back then. So it's not a complete shock that you never hit pads or sparred or did a whole lot
29:56
before you got in there to fight. Because no one really knew what to do in order to be an MMA fighter,
30:00
you had to go train in a boxing gym and then drive across town to a wrestling gym and then go to a
30:04
jujitsu school and take a private lesson and something like that. But you and Randy were actually,
30:09
I don't know if y'all were the first you're you're one of the first to kind of create your own team.
30:13
And so that was Team Quest. So the legendary Team Quest, you know, there's a lot of names out there,
30:17
Chelsea Anand's another guy that was there with you guys. So what was that like trying to start a
30:22
gym where it's like, okay, we're not just going to be the gym that does this one discipline really
30:27
well, but we're going to try to do it all so we can train for these fights. Well, I mean,
30:31
the sport kind of dictated that. I mean, it wasn't just one aspect of fighting. It was
30:39
everything every martial art kind of combined. So we had guys that did a lot of grappling did a
30:47
lot of striking him to kind of, it would bring him in and practice all together. And we'd all be
30:53
learning, you know, the same things. But Randy and I would, we're really good at using our wrestling
31:01
and figuring out how to make it our wrestling work for everything else. So and yeah, it would
31:07
have been a lot easier had the sport been around. And there was coaches that actually went through
31:12
this and already knew how to what was good for wrestling, what wasn't in MMA. And yeah, it was
31:20
it was definitely a process, but it was real fun to learn. And after the after years of wrestling
31:25
Greco and Greco, it's even more limited than freestyle. You don't you don't have leg attacks,
31:33
you can't grab legs and it's mostly upper body. And it got pretty redundant and practice every day.
31:40
So soon as I started MMA practice or training, it was so fun to learn all this new stuff and
31:48
submissions. And you know, we weren't allowed to do that stuff in wrestling. And I think I think
31:54
that's what slowly developed in me was the love of the sport because of how fun and exciting it was.
32:02
And so at some point you make the decision, I think you were 30, where you're like, okay,
32:08
I'm going to do this MMA thing full time. You're not going to pursue the Olympic dream anymore.
32:14
You're not going to go back to school. I think you're talking about going to chiropractic school
32:17
or something like that, you know, start your own business, that type of thing. You burn the ships
32:21
and in the year 2000, you sign with pride. And so I have this habit of when I'm on the back porch
32:27
smoking a cigar and having a whiskey, I'll just turn on old pride fights, because it's just like,
32:31
you know, it kind of takes me back to those early days and that 10 minute first round or whatever.
32:35
But at the time that you signed, it was the biggest MMA promotion in the world. You had previously
32:40
fought in the UFC at UFC 17, but the UFC was kind of struggling at the time. You know,
32:45
no one really knew that it would survive much less become this, you know, global hedgeamon
32:49
that it is now, but you're undefeated. You're 9 and 0, you already beat, you know, big nog,
32:54
Carlos Newton and some other guys. And they asked you to fight some dude named Van der Le Silva.
32:59
And you see him, you know, in the pre fight stuff and he's tatted up and he's obviously
33:06
used to the gills and like he looks like a fighter. He looks like a dude that'll kill you
33:09
in a parking lot. And you go through this fight, you lead up to this fight and you actually lose
33:15
the decision. And this is the first loss of your MMA career. So take me through that, you know,
33:20
signing, you know, going to fight in Japan again, fighting against this guy that everybody's
33:24
terrified of. But then you do go in there and you just don't get your hand raised.
33:28
Uh, yeah, actually, when they first contacted me, they wanted me to fight detour. Right. Right.
33:34
And he got hurt or pulled out. And it wasn't like I was had that long to be noticed. I think I
33:41
knew about three weeks before that I was going to fight there. And, uh, you know, and then I
33:49
think, uh, I was at a wrestling tournament in France and got word that my opponent changed to
33:55
van der Le and, and, uh, you know, said, okay, I didn't really know anything about them. But
34:02
whatever, it's fine. You know, they were paying me. So I was going to go make some money and,
34:06
and hopefully beat somebody up and, and, uh, I got home and I ended up having stripped for
34:13
at the end of that. And I really didn't have, and I had like 10 days at home and, and, uh, you
34:20
know, I was pretty, pretty much wiped out for at least a week of that 10 days. I really set
34:26
my conditioning back a little bit. And, you know, in that fight, there was a lot of action when I
34:32
fought van der Le and when, yeah, when I showed up at the hotel, I saw him walk by tattoos on the
34:37
back of his head and, you know, I'm like, what the [inaudible]? That's who I'm fighting. So I was like,
34:47
all right, but you know, I don't, I don't get intimidated easy. So I've been there and done that
34:54
with scary looking guys and they're not so scary once you, once you get ahold of them.
35:00
So, but yeah, I, I came out and kind of smashed van der Le's eye pretty good and, and, uh,
35:06
I remember in that fight, he kind of, and the rules were kind of goofy for that event.
35:14
They didn't allow knees to the head when you were face down on the ground. But if the guy was face
35:20
up, you can soccer kick him, stop him, whatever. I think their mentality was, if he's faced up,
35:27
you can see it coming and, you know, move out of the way maybe, but if he's faced down, he won't.
35:32
But down to lay through an illegal need in my head when I was faced down and they stopped it.
35:38
And then they told me that if I didn't content, if I didn't continue, I'd lose the fight.
35:43
Not that I was thinking about not continuing, but I was seeing a little bit blurry at that point,
35:49
but I got up and finished the fight. But yeah, I was, uh, I think the last half of that fight,
35:56
I spent a decent amount of time on my back with van der Le above me, trying to
36:01
soccer kick and head stop me while he's holding on to the ropes.
36:06
Well, and that's the other thing that's kind of shocking to people when they watch some of these
36:12
old fights, especially the soccer kicks, which I don't actually know why that's, that's not super
36:17
legal considering some of the other things that can be done, like, you know, flying these and
36:20
different things like that. But you know, it took to each of their own, but you, after that fight,
36:25
you go on a nice little run and you beat some guys and as you're beating guys, like you're,
36:30
you're bludgeoning them, you're, you're knocking them out. And so this is when you actually get a
36:35
nickname for one of your body parts and it's your right hand. And so you get the nickname,
36:40
the H bomb. And so that's from a legendary pride commentator, Maro Nalo. And he basically
36:45
called it the H bomb. And the thing is, is that nobody was really expecting it, right? Because
36:49
you're the Greco Olympian, right? No one's expecting overhand rights. No one's expecting
36:55
these uppercuts. No one's expecting you to have that. But the thing is, is when you connected Dan,
36:59
people would just turn off. And I mean, you, you knocked out Hinzo in the fight right after
37:04
you lost Savannah, like, and it was just, I mean, you have these brutal knockouts. So I guess for you,
37:08
when did you realize you had that? Because you look at a guy right now, like a dominant wrestler,
37:13
like a Colby Covington, he's never going to knock anybody out. He's going to have to punch you
37:18
a hundred times and just overwhelm you with his pressure and his pace in order to get you out of
37:23
there. Otherwise, he's just going to have to fight you for 25 minutes. But for you, it's like,
37:27
you can look for one shot, land it, and then the fight's over. So it takes through that.
37:31
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a nice thing to have, you know, and but I didn't realize,
37:40
you know, how hard I had, especially when I first started, I told you we never
37:44
sparred. And then I would hit pads and they'd say, Oh, you hit pretty hard. But I mean, you don't know
37:50
what that means, you know, I hit pretty hard. Okay. You know, but until you start sparring and
37:56
you know, kind of, kind of reacting to, to punches coming at you with your own
38:02
offense and, you know, kind of setting up certain shots and try to figure out where to put those
38:07
punches and where to put that power. That's when, that's when I slowly started putting it together
38:14
with, with being able to land my power in the right spots. And, you know, before that, I didn't
38:22
really, I was just throwing, I was so in hard punches, but they just weren't going to the right
38:27
places. And, you know, that fight against Hinsa, Gracie, you know, I practiced with big gloves on
38:36
while I had other guys with the little gloves on trying to take me down the whole time,
38:39
because I figured as soon as I hit him once or twice, he would just try to take me down the whole
38:44
time. And that's basically what happened. And I was practicing catching guys on the way in. And,
38:50
and it went exactly to how I planned it would go, which is where.
38:56
Right. Well, I mean, it's, I mean, you said it great. It's that, I mean, that's a great
39:01
arrow to have in your quiver. Because a lot of guys don't have that. I mean, again, like a max
39:05
Holloway or some of these guys, they just have to really throw punches and bunches and land a whole
39:09
bunch. But I want to fast forward to 2005 when you are in the pride welterweight Grand Prix.
39:15
So that's not 170 pounds. That was 183 pounds at the time. So you get a couple of KOs in September
39:21
of that year, which gets you into the championship fight on New Year's Eve. So you're going to be
39:25
fighting against Marilla Bustamante. And so, you know, again, you're going to all this detail in the
39:30
book. So it's going to seem like I'm just casually passing over this. But again, you got to pick up
39:33
the book for all this detail. The fight does go the distance. You win via split decision.
39:39
And at that exact moment, you're a world champion. And I want to read this quote from you from your
39:42
book here. I heard the ring announcer scream, Dan Henderson and it dawned on me that I had finally
39:49
won the first championship belt in my career. I had reached one of my mixed martial arts goals.
39:54
I could check world champion off of that list. So, Hendo, what was it like becoming a world
40:00
champ for the first time? Well, it was, it was a little definitely surreal and a little bit
40:07
unbelievable. But, you know, I was, you know, obviously happy to have that opportunity. But,
40:13
yeah, it was, I was definitely happy about it for sure. And I don't, you know, I think
40:21
it showed a little bit when I was there. But yeah, I was, I was pretty
40:27
happy to say the least it was, you know, you work so hard for something and, and,
40:32
and dedicate a good part of your life to trying to be the best. And you finally get there. It's
40:40
definitely one of those, you know, take a big deep breath and relax for a moment, you know,
40:46
moments. Yeah. So, yeah, I couldn't, I don't even know how to put it into words. It was just awesome.
40:55
I mean, guy, I talked to guys that will win a gold medal at a local Jiu Jitsu tournament.
41:01
They get a little taste of that. You know, they put in all this work and maybe it's their
41:04
white belt tournament. They've been training for a year and a half and they get a little taste of
41:07
that. And, you know, there's certain fights in a fighter's career that are just those seminal
41:13
moments. And there was a very unique quote from your book where you say this February 24th of 2007
41:20
was the date of my redemption. So what you're referring to is your rematch against Vanderley
41:26
Silva. So this is actually, you know, because you, you kept not quite being able to get the
41:32
rematch booked. You know, it didn't quite make sense all the way, but here we are. It's 2000 or
41:36
2007 and pride has booked you. But this is a chance for you to win your second title. Okay.
41:42
So you're the welterweight champion, but then you could have been the middleweight champion,
41:45
which at the time was 205 pounds now, which is light heavyweight. So I'm not going to ruin it
41:50
for anybody. Because I've been kind of ruining it throughout this interview by telling people
41:54
what happened before you get a chance to say what happened. So it's February 24th of 2007.
41:59
You're fighting Vanderley Silva for a chance at a second title. What the heck happened, Dan?
42:03
Well, honestly, when they first called me, and this is when pride was coming to America,
42:11
they had chosen Vegas. And I fought I fought B tour the first time they came and
42:17
at light heavy or they called it middleweight. And then they called me up for the next show.
42:26
They wanted me to fight Vanderley. I was like, okay, no problem. I would love to, you know,
42:32
because I was waiting for my chance to fight him again. And, and, you know, I would always lose,
42:38
right, right. And he had had the title for about five years at that point. And I'd always kind of
42:44
have a loss right before I'd have that title shot opportunity. So
42:49
I said, for sure, I'll do the fight. And then I had to call him back or text him or email him,
42:58
you know, a couple days later, I was thinking about it because they, they're known for doing
43:04
fights with their champion that are non title fights with guys that are in different weight
43:11
classes or whatever. So I was like, well, is this for the title? Not that it mattered,
43:17
because I said, yeah, no matter what. And they're like, yeah, it's for the title. I was like, oh,
43:22
awesome. So, and then I'd go out there and had a pretty good fight and caught him and, and
43:31
knocked him out and won the second belt. And at the time, you know, I knew it was a big deal, but,
43:40
you know, that I had two belts, you know, at the same time, but, you know, it was one of those
43:47
things where went to next. What am I going to do next? And, you know, I didn't know that it was
43:55
such a huge thing to have that nobody's ever done and nobody did for a long time after that.
44:02
You know, so to have those two belts was pretty awesome. And, and to knock Vanderlei out the way
44:10
I did was, you know, definitely one of my top two fights as far as the feeling of accomplishment,
44:20
for sure. It is probably, it probably is the top based on just getting that belt, but,
44:27
you know, the Fedor fight is the other one that's close to that. But, yeah.
44:33
Well, we're going to talk about Fedor certainly here in a second, but it's a fantastic fight
44:38
with you and Vanderlei. You guys should definitely go and check it out. It was wild at different
44:41
points, but you didn't really have to wait long for the next step because the next step came the
44:46
very next month in March of 2007, because after you defeated went Vanderlei to get your second belt,
44:52
the UFC bought out pride. It was a shock to most, to most people. And here you are,
44:56
you're back in the UFC. Your first couple of fights were against Rampage and Anderson Silva,
45:02
and you lost those, then you fought Paul Harris and you beat him. And then you got a call from UFC
45:06
president Dana White to see if you would be interested in this old TV show they had at the
45:11
time called the ultimate fighter opposite Michael Bisming. So essentially what it would be, it would
45:16
be the United States versus the UK with Bisming coaching team UK. And it would either be you or
45:21
Rich Franklin coaching team USA. And so whoever won the fight between you and Rich would end up
45:26
being the coach. You end up beating Rich Franklin on January 17th of 2009. So you earned the spot to
45:31
be the coach. So you and Bisming were the coaches for your teams during the season. And then, you
45:36
know, if you know about the ultimate fighter, basically the coaches will fight each other at
45:40
some time after the season is over. So you ended up fighting Michael Bisming at UFC 100,
45:45
still one of the biggest pay per view of and one of the most watched fight cards of all time.
45:49
That was in July of 2009. And we'll get to the fight. Don't worry because it's one of my favorite
45:55
moments in the history of anything ever. Okay. So we'll certainly get to the fight. But I want to
45:59
talk about the buildup to the fight because a lot of people don't realize how different people are
46:05
when the microphones are on versus how they are behind the scenes. But it seems like Michael Bisming
46:11
is just as [inaudible] in person. And when the cameras are on and as when the cameras are off.
46:17
So just take us through this experience of you being around Michael Bisming all the time, watching
46:22
how he handles his fighters and how he handles himself and his business, watching how you handle
46:27
yours. And then, you know, we'll make our way to UFC 100 after that. Well, I didn't really know him
46:33
very well before that. I think I had when I fought rampage in England, Michael Bisming
46:40
was on the card against Matt, Matt Hamill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt Hamill took him down and
46:51
controlled them almost the whole fight. And I thought beat him up quite a bit. And Michael Bisming
46:57
won the fight by decision. And in the press conference, this is this and this is the first
47:02
time I've ever met and seen and been around. And you know, the British media is asking him if
47:11
he thought that he won the fight, you know, and he threatened two different media guys to go take
47:18
them on the parking lot and beat them up, cussed at them. I'm like, what the [inaudible], dude? I mean,
47:24
it's not how you represent the sport. I mean, that's
47:27
threatening to fight a non fighter. Like what's that about? Because they didn't agree with the
47:34
judges decision, which very few people did. But anyway, that was my first experience with him.
47:42
And then now I'm coaching the ultimate fighter against him. And yeah, he, he, unless I guess
47:49
one thing that you got to respect about the guy, it's not like he's, he's got a fake persona on
47:55
camera and off camera. He's the same guy, no matter what. And, you know, he just, yeah,
48:02
[inaudible] is the word I think he has done the show for him. But yeah, he, uh, yeah, I think since
48:10
then he's kind of grown up a little bit. But I don't, yeah, he, uh, he likes to talk.
48:16
He certainly likes to talk. And he thinks of himself as a savant in that area, even though
48:22
whenever he's commentating, I have this tendency to put my, uh, my television on mute. But let's go
48:28
ahead and get to UFC 100 in July of 2009. There's a lot of anticipation for the fight card, right?
48:34
Cause GSP is on a Brock Lesnar's on. It's, you know, UFC 100, right? You're the third fight of the
48:39
main event or a third fight of the main card rather. And there's so much anticipation,
48:44
because I remember watching every single episode of that season of the ultimate fighter. And I'm
48:48
just like, I remember like when you kind of switch practice up, uh, you wanted to do a different
48:52
practice time and he throws a little hissy fit. Oh, you can't do that down. And you know, just all
48:56
this stuff. And like it was just like, Oh my God, I, I so badly want Dan Henderson to separate Michael
49:03
Bizbing from his consciousness. I really, really super duper hope it happens. Like I was looking
49:07
forward to the other fights. Cause at the time GSP was probably my favorite fighter, but I was
49:11
really, really looking forward to that. So well, let's just talk about the fight a little bit.
49:16
You get into round one. You can see it kind of how his movements going. You get close on a few
49:21
things. You're smiling at him. I think he shot a takedown at the end around one, which was hilarious.
49:26
Uh, considering the two different backgrounds on your wrestling, but then we go into round two.
49:31
And there's a quote from the book that I want to read here. He made the fatal mistake of moving to
49:35
his left and right into maybe the cleanest, hardest overhand right in MMA history. And it's so funny,
49:43
cause I re-watched the fight just a week ago, Dan, at the very beginning of the fight. Uh, you know,
49:49
Joe Rogan is saying things like, Oh yeah, I don't really know how Dan Henderson's gonna be able to
49:53
handle the pressure and the pace and blah, blah, blah. And then I think Goldberg was like, Joe, uh,
49:58
Bizbin keeps circling to his left. He's circling into to the H bomb and Joe's like, yeah, he's gonna
50:04
have to be careful. And then in round two, like the perfect connection of perfect connections happened.
50:09
You throw a little inside leg kick and then you just throw the entire planet's worth of energy
50:14
into one motion and connected with Dan with, uh, with Bizbing's face. And then you followed it
50:20
with a Superman punch technically, uh, which ended up being your, your logo for one of your businesses.
50:26
And it's still my favorite moment in all the moments of 30 years of MMA and different things
50:32
like that. It's my single favorite moment because of how much I wanted it to happen. And so how did
50:39
it feel to you? Cause I didn't think you were going to say fate or earlier. I thought you were
50:42
going to say the Bizbing one was the most satisfying because of, you know, all the talk and all the
50:47
everything else. But let's talk about Bizbing in that knockout. Yeah, I mean, obviously I enjoyed
50:53
it more than anybody because I got to do it. But yeah, he, uh, you're not alone in how you feel
51:02
because almost almost every day, no matter where I'm at, someone comes up to me and says,
51:10
thank you for knocking at Bizbing. That was my favorite or, or, you know, almost every single day,
51:18
no matter where I'm at, someone says that. And, uh, you know, so you're definitely not alone in,
51:25
in your thoughts on that one. But, you know, I said that fatal was a close second. It was more about
51:32
accomplishing something big. I mean, I had already, I knew I was going to go in there and destroy
51:38
Bizbing. And, and I didn't think he was going to be able to handle me and my style and my,
51:45
my power. You know, so I knew that he had good cardio and that's about the only thing that he had
51:52
was good at. So for me, knocking out a guy like Theodore or Vanderlea was a much bigger accomplishment
52:03
at the time. You know, Bizbing hadn't become champion. He hadn't, you know, he had a pretty
52:10
good record, but he hadn't really gotten up higher in the ranks and defeated some good guys yet.
52:18
And it was just such a great fight because of the buildup, because of that, how the way that
52:24
it ended. And at the time, it's like, Oh my gosh, your rocket in the UFC is going to shoot to the
52:28
moon. But then you kind of take a hard left turn because after that fight, you actually let the UFC
52:33
to go to strike force, which was another MMA promotion headed up by Scott Koker at the time.
52:37
He's the same promoter of Bellator, which actually just recently got acquired by PFL.
52:41
And on your third fight in strike force, you actually won another world championship. You won
52:46
the light heavyweight championship when you knocked out Calvacontae. And then your next fight after
52:50
that was against one of the most feared, uh, in legendary MMA fighters of all time, which you've
52:56
already mentioned, Fedor, a million. And it's a shock that y'all never fought in pride considering
53:01
like all the different guys you fought, like in common and different things like that. So
53:05
I know different weight classes and all that. It would have been kind of crazy. But you know,
53:08
the Japanese always love, you know, putting these, mushing these different match ups together that,
53:13
you know, the crowd will find interesting. And there's all this fear surrounding him. And he's,
53:18
he's literally just a legend. He's one of those guys that if you just looked at him with a shirt
53:22
off, you wouldn't be terrified of him. But then you watch him fight and it's like, Oh my gosh,
53:24
that's a gorilla in there. But talk to me about how you were feeling going into that fight against
53:30
him. Because at this point, neither one of y'all had ever been finished. Everyone's like, Oh,
53:34
this is going to be a five round, you know, rock them, sock them robots. And we'll see how it goes
53:38
at the end. And then I'll let you tell everybody how it ended. Yeah, I mean, I know going into that
53:45
fight, my wife and every one of my friends and corners, you know, we're a lot more nervous than
53:53
the normally. And me, I was just me, I was the same. I wasn't nervous about it. I kind of knew that,
54:00
you know, I had to do certain things. I didn't want to just go out there and play rock them,
54:07
sock them robot with them. I just, you know, wanted to kind of control them in the clench and
54:11
beat them up a little bit. And you know, that kind of went out the window a little bit. When he just,
54:19
he came out just trying to knock my head off from from right away. I think I stopped his assault
54:25
when I was trying to touch gloves with him. He stopped in touch gloves. And then he tried to
54:30
knock my head off. But he, uh, yeah, he was going after me. And I think I landed a left hook right
54:38
towards that first flurry and hit and backed him up. You know, and I remember in that,
54:47
in that moment, the fight just kind of pressure him after that. And you know, I think that's when
54:52
he figured out that the little guy can hit hard too. You know, so he, uh, he's definitely,
54:58
and in my mind, he was, I respected him quite a bit as a fighter and, and, uh, and would be
55:08
accomplished and how he carried himself and never talked [inaudible] just went out and got the job done and
55:14
usually got it done pretty quickly. Um, so yeah, it was definitely, like I said,
55:21
one of the top couple feeling of accomplishments that, but I've had in my career, I'm sure.
55:28
Well, we'll take us through the finish, Dan, because it was interesting because you got hurt
55:33
and it all happened so quick. Um, I just rewatch it here again recently because I remember it being
55:39
quick, but I don't remember being that quick. So you get hurt, you're down. He, he falls up. It
55:44
looks like he's about to end the fight. And you do what I can only describe. So people that have
55:49
trained you, Jitsu, if you've trained Jitsu for two weeks, you, you basically used that little
55:54
sweep that you did. Like you, you basically just went, went under his arm, you kind of kicked his butt
55:58
to move his weight up a little bit. And almost inexplicably, he kind of goes, uh, almost in all
56:04
fours, he kind of posts his hands out really, really wide. And then you hit him with that shot. So
56:09
tell me what you saw in that moment because, well, did you see anything? Like, were you on queer
56:14
street because he hit you hard and he followed up, you know what I mean? You know, he, he was
56:18
coming at me pretty hard when we were standing and I was kind of bent over and backing up at the
56:23
same time. And, and I think because I was a little bit bent over, his punch kind of grazed me.
56:30
And I think it cut, cut me open a little bit, but it didn't knock me silly at all. It knocked me on
56:38
my ass. And, and then I, you know, I see him coming at me and I'm trying to, trying to grab a single
56:43
leg, trying to do something. And he just gets on top trying to flurry. But I wasn't really hurt that
56:49
bad at all. It was more about him just bum rushing me and knocking me out balance. And it set me on
56:57
my ass. But, you know, and I, I like to get like a single leg in there and, and, and, or just an
57:05
underhook and, and, and kind of throw him by, you know, or pull the pull the single leg to where
57:12
I'm pulling on his ass. So I make his weight go on his hands. And he was kind of off balance,
57:18
trying to punch me so hard that he didn't have his weight set back to where he could
57:25
have a good balance. So I just made him have to put his hands down on the mat as I popped out the
57:30
side. And, and, you know, I, it's not like you practice that punch and practice very often at all.
57:36
You know, but I just threw a punch towards his face under his armpit from the back and, and,
57:45
hit it, hit it in the right spot, I guess, because he can face planted on the, on the mat.
57:50
I mean, it was incredible. And again, to people that have continued watching Fedor's career,
57:55
like he's been turned off several more times since then. But at the time, people were talking
58:00
about it like, whatever's harder than Granite, that was what Fedor's chin was. It was like,
58:04
this guy's not capable of being finished. And then you finished him in such spectacular fashion,
58:09
which was incredible. But after that fight with Fedor, strike force folds. Okay. So here you are,
58:15
you find yourself back in the UFC. And so you just yeah, the UFC bottom.
58:19
Yeah. And so here, here we go. Strike forces absorbed just like pride was. And so this is like,
58:25
I think your third stint in the UFC at that point. And so your first fight back in the UFC
58:30
was against another pride legend in Shogun, Hua. And that was at UFC 139 in 2011. You had
58:37
actually previously beaten his brother Ninja Hua back at pride 17 in 2001. So that was pretty
58:42
interesting. I didn't realize that until I read your book, but this was going to be a five round
58:45
main event. And Dan, I've been a part of some fight cards where it's like, okay, here's two legends
58:51
that we're going to put in a fight. And then it just ends up being a dud. It just sucks. And it's
58:56
just like, you're so excited because you're thinking about all the highlights for both guys. And you
59:00
think, Oh, it's going to be fireworks. And then they go on there and maybe they're given too much
59:03
respect to one another. And then it just ends up being an awful fight. But what that fight ended
59:07
up being is legitimately one of the single greatest fights in the history of MMA. So it was the
59:14
fight of the year for 2011. But the fight actually was inducted into the fight wing of the UFC Hall
59:20
of Fame. I think it was back in 2018. And so talk to us about going into that fight. Obviously,
59:27
it was another shocking thing that you two hadn't locked horns before considering the different
59:31
places that y'all had fought and the places where you were there at the same time. What were you
59:36
anticipating going into that fight? And then just take us through this just five round war that you
59:43
both endured. Yeah, I mean, I think, and I don't know which one of those fights I was watching where,
59:50
you know, previous to that, he had, I think he might have been injured coming off injury or
59:56
something like that. And and just didn't perform very well. And he kind of quit halfway through the
1:00:01
fight and and and just got finished. And so, and I'm seeing that and I'm like, you know what,
1:00:07
I'm gonna, I'm gonna pressure him and beat on him a little bit. And I'm gonna try to make him
1:00:15
break and and make him quit and finish him. And that was kind of my goal going into the fight.
1:00:22
I knew that I had the capability of doing that. But yeah, I knew obviously he's been around a long
1:00:27
time and a tough guy. You know, so I kind of hurt him right at the beginning of the fight,
1:00:36
cut him open, almost finished him and and used a lot of energy that first round.
1:00:43
Then I think in the third round, I knocked him down and tried to finish him again and just
1:00:48
used a lot of energy. And and I don't know, for me, I threw a lot of punches in that fight for,
1:00:56
you know, compared to what I normally do. And that was, you know, the first time
1:01:01
that they did five rounds for just a main event. So I had to take into account that I had two extra
1:01:12
rounds and needed to kind of be careful. But yeah, I tried to finish him so hard that into that
1:01:16
third round that, you know, kind of shot my wad a little bit and and was pretty tired after that.
1:01:25
So he kind of basically, I let him get back in the fight. Just, you know, he he tough through it and
1:01:33
kept on going and and definitely a lot tougher and and give him a lot more respect after the fight
1:01:42
for sure. Yeah, he was tough. Yeah. And obviously at that point in his career, he had fought so many
1:01:49
times, you assumed that he was tough, but like to exactly what you said, to see him kind of mentally
1:01:54
check out of a fight previously to that and then be so like his will to win that fight was so
1:02:00
incredible. Now you did end up winning the decision. And again, it's gone down in history
1:02:04
as simply one of the greatest and most rewatchable fights of all time. And I mean, you were exhausted
1:02:09
at the end. It was crazy watching in the fifth round. I think he got mount on you about 47 times.
1:02:14
But it was just like one of those things like at that point, there was no, there was no sweeping.
1:02:18
There was no takedown there. There was no like y'all were basically just surviving and luckily for
1:02:23
you, you ended up getting the decision. And now after that, Dan, you you go on kind of a who's who
1:02:30
rode of fighting, you know, the elite names of MMA. So you fought Machita and then Rashad,
1:02:35
Vitor again, Shogun again, DC, Musasi, Tim Bosch, Vitor again, again, and then Hector Lombard.
1:02:42
And it was at this time that after the Hector Lombard fight, because it wasn't going your way,
1:02:47
that last fight for a long time, and then you hit him with the most inexplicable elbow strike of all
1:02:52
time kind of like, it's like if you were to get mad at a wall and like hit it with an elbow or
1:02:56
something like that, that's basically what you did to Hector Lombard's head. But you were thinking
1:03:00
about calling it quits. You're well into your forties at this point. And you're just thinking,
1:03:06
dad, that was probably my last fight. But then you get a call from Dana, Uncle Dana. And he asks
1:03:10
you if you would be interested in having a second fight with your old rival, Michael Bisming. Now,
1:03:15
it was kind of a shocking call to you because I think you were ranked 12th or 13th at in the
1:03:20
middleweight rankings at the time. And Michael Bisming had just won the championship by knocking
1:03:25
out Luke Rockhold on short notice. And you know, you had lost six of your last nine fights up to
1:03:30
that point. That was after the win that you had against Shogun, the first fight. But this fight
1:03:35
would be in Manchester, England, home turf for Bisming. It was going to be a title fight. And you
1:03:40
knew it was going to be the last fight of your career. And so did Dana in the UFC. And so you're
1:03:44
either going to go out on top with the UFC strap, or that was just going to be your last last fight,
1:03:49
and you're going to ride off into the sunset. So talk to me about your mindset going into this
1:03:53
fight, because there's a lot going on. Like you're at the ladder into your career. You've already
1:03:58
made the decision. This is your last fight. You have to freaking listen to Michael Bisming talk
1:04:02
again. And this fight's going to be in England. And as you've established earlier in this conversation
1:04:06
and in your book, when you're fighting an English fighter in England, and you let it go to the
1:04:11
fight cards, it doesn't typically go your way. It's it's kind of a shocking thing that happens.
1:04:16
But just take us through the build up and take us through the fight.
1:04:19
Yeah, you know, at that point, I had already learned, and not just him, but a lot of other
1:04:26
people, but mostly him, I learned how to just ignore almost everything they say, leading up
1:04:32
to the fight. I don't really care. What what matters to me is what happens once I get there. And,
1:04:38
and we're in the case together. So, you know, obviously,
1:04:46
if he likes to try to rattle people up a little bit, but yeah, I just stayed me and
1:04:52
was I was pretty excited to get the opportunity. Obviously, you know, I knew
1:04:59
and you know, the whole world probably knew that I wasn't it was going to be really hard for me to
1:05:06
do better against him than I did the previous time. I mean,
1:05:12
you know, that was basically like like a grand slam type type of fight the first time I thought
1:05:18
him. So, you know, I knew that obviously I was going to try to beat him again and it would
1:05:25
be a perfect exit out of MMA to kind of have that that belt and be the be a world champ again,
1:05:33
leaving the sport. So, yeah, I definitely, I was 46 years old and definitely had a little
1:05:42
bit of you know, I was I was feeling the age a little bit as far as recovery goes. I wasn't
1:05:51
recovering as fast. So, those five round fights were definitely a little bit tougher. So, you know,
1:05:57
I kind of came into that fight with them with, you know, the game plan of of beating them up and
1:06:07
knocking them down. But, you know, trying to conserve some energy as well, because I know that he's
1:06:13
got one of the better cardio's out there, you know, in MMA. So, that's basically what I did and
1:06:21
kind of kind of just stalked him down a little bit the first couple rounds and knocked him down both
1:06:27
first two rounds. And, you know, I felt like I was just beating him up. He was touching me here
1:06:36
and there, but never never threw anything that even gave me a an idea that he hit hard at all. So,
1:06:43
you know, it was pretty shocking to me at the end of five rounds that that I didn't get the
1:06:51
decision based on the fact that I beat him up and he looked like he got beat up. So, I don't know,
1:06:59
it left a bad taste in my mouth a little bit losing that decision. But, you know, I wasn't,
1:07:05
I meant it when I was going to retire win or lose, you know. So, it didn't, it didn't really make
1:07:11
me feel like I wanted to fight again. Winning wouldn't have made me want to fight again. You know,
1:07:17
that would have been the way to go out. And I was, I was hoping for that.
1:07:19
Well, I will say for me as a fan of yours at the time, and still, I was very disappointed in the
1:07:27
decision. It reminded me of like when, when Dil Shah fought Cruz, I thought that was a bad decision.
1:07:34
John Jones has been on the good side of a bunch of bad decisions. Gustafson beat beat him in their
1:07:39
first fight and he didn't get the decision. Another guy, Dominic Reyes beat him in their,
1:07:46
in their fight and didn't get the decision. And so, there's just some of those decisions
1:07:49
that just stick with you to where it's just like, it's almost like, yeah, this person got robbed
1:07:53
and if that fight had taken place in Vegas or Sao Paulo or, you know, Tokyo, you probably leave
1:07:59
with the UFC belt, but it was in Manchester. And so, you didn't really get the nod. But,
1:08:03
you know, that wraps up your career. And I really appreciate all your patience with these questions,
1:08:07
kind of going through all this because you do a great job detailing in the book. And again,
1:08:11
it's another commercial for Hendo, the book, the American athlete. And so, one thing I wanted to
1:08:16
kind of pull up as well, because you mentioned it earlier in this conversation. And you also
1:08:19
mentioned it just briefly a couple of times in the book. So you talked about Bob Anderson,
1:08:24
you talked about his little mini sermons. There's a quote from your book. It's actually this on
1:08:28
Sunday mornings, Bob, who is also a Christian, would give us 30 minute messages on the Bible
1:08:32
and talk about Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. And then in the last chapter of Hendo,
1:08:38
you have a few sentences here that I'll read. I'm not really a religious guy. I don't go to
1:08:43
church, but I still believe in God. I tend to not think about creation or give much thought to the
1:08:47
meaning of life. I've always strived to be the best person I can be regardless of circumstances.
1:08:52
And that isn't because God watching me, I've done it to better myself. And so, as I was reading that
1:08:58
day and I was, I was reminded of a scripture from James, which talks about how, you know,
1:09:02
if you believe in God, well, great. So do the demons, the demons believe in God and they shudder.
1:09:07
And so for you, talk to me a little bit about your faith life, because right there, you just give
1:09:12
us a little bit of a snippet. I, you're not a religious guy, but people that typically say
1:09:16
that just don't like church, because you know, I get it. Church isn't really a place for tough
1:09:19
guys with messed up ears. And so for you, when you think about your relationship to God, or even
1:09:25
your thoughts on Jesus of Nazareth, where do you land on all that?
1:09:28
I mean, like I said, I don't, I don't go to church. I've been to church a number of times,
1:09:36
but not in a while. But, you know, I just, I'm always trying to be the best I can be. And,
1:09:43
you know, I think I'm always a fair guy. And just, and I think if more people live like that,
1:09:52
you know, and I know what, you know, the religion is supposed to try to get people to kind of have
1:09:58
a reason to live like that. But I mean, I don't know, I just live like that just because that's
1:10:05
how I am. And that, you know, I just want to be a good person. I don't, you know, I don't like,
1:10:12
you know, I've been meaning the past is in certain circumstances. But, you know, I just,
1:10:20
I'm just pretty easy going and love everybody. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt and
1:10:25
have patience with everybody. And, you know, a lot of my friends and my wife, everybody,
1:10:31
you know, tells me I got way too much patience and I'm too nice to certain people. It's a lot
1:10:36
of people that, I mean, I don't know. And again, growing up hearing a lot of these
1:10:43
Bob talk a lot and, you know, it definitely is stuck with me. And, you know, but, but again, I don't
1:10:50
read the Bible. I don't, I don't go to church, you know, but I am, I do believe in God and I,
1:10:59
you know, I try to be a good person. But, you know, I don't think it's because of him, but you never
1:11:07
know. But I just, it's important to me to always be fair. And, and, you know, I think I'm known for
1:11:15
that as well. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, you don't spend a lot of time in Scripture reading
1:11:20
the Bible, but you're kind of aware of these stories mainly from what Bob would would give you.
1:11:25
If you do read, read the Bible and the story of Scripture is that none of us can ever be good
1:11:31
enough before a holy and righteous God that like even the best person you know was born into sin
1:11:38
when they were born in this world. And so belief in God is an essential piece to a Christian walk,
1:11:44
but it's what do you do with Jesus? Was this a real person? Did he really die on across a Roman
1:11:51
cross? You know, 2000 years ago, did he really rise from the dead? And did that provide payment
1:11:57
for all of our sin debt so that we could be before God for you? Is that something that
1:12:02
you would even be curious about digging into more? Because I in listen, I don't want to talk about
1:12:07
church. I don't want to talk about any of that because that gets into denominations and preferences
1:12:10
and music and all that. I don't even care about that. I care just specifically about
1:12:14
do you have faith that Jesus did that? Because if you don't, then you don't live a good life and,
1:12:21
you know, maybe you'll be right in the end. But specifically on the question, I guess, of the
1:12:26
resurrection, is that something that you've ever really wanted to reckon with to be like, okay,
1:12:30
I want to get to pay dirt on this. I want to get to the foundation and figure out if I actually
1:12:34
believe this or not. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things that probably still
1:12:39
in my head that I'm not not undecided still, you know, I'd like to believe it, you know, but
1:12:47
you know, there's been a lot of other things in history that have been written down that
1:12:54
probably didn't happen. You know, but typically there's always some sort of truth to start
1:13:02
somebody to talk about it, even way back then. So yeah, I mean, I'd like, I kind of lean towards
1:13:09
believing it. But yeah, I mean, it's not something I think about that often, actually, but
1:13:14
got you. Well, this is probably like that. Yeah, I mean, I probably do believe a lot more than I
1:13:22
don't believe, if that makes sense. But yeah, I did kind of throw that right in your face,
1:13:28
didn't I? Well, that was kind of the point, I guess. But that would be my my encouragement for
1:13:32
you. Is there a lot of people Dan that don't think about it at all? And they never want to think
1:13:36
about it because that's just how they're wired. They hate God, even though they don't think he
1:13:39
exists and all those types of things. But my encouragement to you and my hope for you would be
1:13:44
that you would actually go further into realizing, Hey, there's a lot of there's a lot of research,
1:13:49
and there's a lot that's been written down that substantiates the truth claims that we find in
1:13:53
those gospel accounts. So that'd be my encouragement to you. Now, before we get out of here, because I
1:13:57
know you got some important dental work that your your lovely daughter needs to do. I got some rapid
1:14:02
fire MMA questions for you. So these are more like just quick, just quick overall thoughts. Okay.
1:14:07
So what is the number one fight that you want to have back? So if you go back in your entire career,
1:14:13
even if it's a win, but if it's a win that you wanted to get in a more fancier way,
1:14:17
if there's one fight that you could go back and redo, which one would it be?
1:14:21
Well, either one of them, but probably the two fights that I lost a detour.
1:14:27
Okay. Why? Why are the ones to detour?
1:14:30
Well, I think just mostly because of the reputation that he had, and he would only fight in Brazil
1:14:38
for some reason. For some reason. Yeah, you know, I also think that, you know,
1:14:47
I would have liked have had a little bit more time from the referee to kind of recover. He
1:14:51
definitely not necessarily a couple of times in both those second fights. He's dangerous at the
1:14:56
beginning of fights. And it would have been, yeah, that's one that I would like to do again,
1:15:03
either one of them. Okay, very good. Well, just real quick, you fought a lot of dudes
1:15:08
in pride and in the UFC that were like their blood type was Tropicana. They were so juicy.
1:15:13
And like in your book, you just kind of like all shuckscy about it. But for me, I'm like,
1:15:18
I hate that because like as you talk about, you don't play fighting, like you're not,
1:15:23
you're not playing this isn't baseball. This isn't, you know, football, like you're trying
1:15:27
to kill the other person in a simulated manner. So how do you like reckon that? Because you lost
1:15:31
to dudes that were juiced out of their minds when they fought you? Like, how do you like,
1:15:35
how are you okay with that? You know, I think just being a competitor my whole life. You hear
1:15:44
about guys doing this, you think guys are doing that. And you know, regardless, if they get caught,
1:15:51
they get caught if they don't, I guess good for them. For me, it's not something that I would feel
1:15:57
good about doing something illegal. You know, I've always just grown up with my dad and Bob
1:16:07
really just forcing, not forcing, but just instilling kind of a good sportsmanship mindset.
1:16:14
So I wouldn't want to do that. And I was one of the first guys to kind of take advantage
1:16:23
of the TRT exemption that athletic mission gave. But when I first got told that I needed it,
1:16:31
I'm like, well, I don't want to do steroids. You know, I'm not doing that. And they're like,
1:16:35
no, not bad. It's just your hormones aren't being produced enough. And
1:16:40
so I talked to the athletic commission about it. And they're like, yeah, you absolutely can.
1:16:47
Well, you know, but then everybody started abusing it and the way it went. But yeah, I mean,
1:16:53
just having that mindset of being that way, I don't even know what your question was now,
1:17:00
but I got, I got off track a little bit. But yeah, just being a little bit more sportsman was just
1:17:06
how I am. No, you stay in the pocket of the question. I mean, it's basically, and there's
1:17:10
the reason why they have a category for Vtor's career called TRT Vtor, right? When he went on
1:17:14
the tear, like killing everybody is because he again was juiced to the gills. All right,
1:17:18
back to the rapid fire questions, there's a few more left. If you could have a fight against any
1:17:23
fighter from any era, any weight class, and you're in your absolute prime, so you can go full fantasy
1:17:29
land here, like you could fight, you know, Musashi area, it doesn't matter. If you could fight one
1:17:34
fighter from any area, era, their prime versus your prime, who would it be?
1:17:40
You know, recently, you know, I thought it would have been, you know, what's his face? Is he
1:17:50
would have been a fun fight for me to basically stalk him down? And I think I didn't have a good
1:17:57
style for him. But you know, it would have been a fun one to do, regardless. It would have just
1:18:05
been a fun fight, just to match up guys that are different like that, it kind of excited me a
1:18:12
little bit more. Yeah, that's a guy that would have had a hard time dealing with your, with your
1:18:17
clinch for sure. All right, a couple more left. So if you could only leave one of your fights
1:18:24
for humanity, so if all of your fights were just a race from everyone's memory, men in black style,
1:18:31
and you could leave one fight behind to, you know, give the world the message, this was Dan Henderson,
1:18:37
right? What's the one fight you would leave for humanity?
1:18:39
Well, I mean, I told you which ones I felt like a big accomplishment of, but I would, I would
1:18:46
have to say this being on that one. That was my hope, because Dan, I'm going to send you that
1:18:54
episode artwork after this, I was going to wait, but literally you flying with Michael Biz being
1:18:59
laying down, ready to accept that second punch while he's already out. That is the artwork for
1:19:04
this episode. And if I could get that painted, like as a mural in my house, it literally makes
1:19:09
me smile every time I think about that knockout. So I'm so glad and that's that you said that. So
1:19:15
I think that's a great place to wrap it up. I really appreciate all your time and all this,
1:19:19
but that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:19:22
No, I mean, I've been enjoying retirement a little bit. I had been working on putting in a brewery
1:19:30
distillery restaurant in the building that my gym is in. So it'll be kind of an interesting
1:19:38
and pretty unique spot. And I live in a town where there's a bunch of wineries and some breweries
1:19:44
already, a lot of horse ranches. So I love where I live. But yeah, I've been working on that. So I'm
1:19:51
going to probably start getting, getting pretty good at learning how to brew and and just still
1:19:58
alcohol. Well, very good. Well, hey, that may give me an excuse to come out to California,
1:20:02
because I don't find a whole lot of opportunities because you live in one of the one of the fine
1:20:06
areas of California, not the crazy areas. So that's good for you and good for your family. But
1:20:11
Hendo, thank you so much for coming on on Daunte with life a man's podcast. I appreciate it. Thank
1:20:15
you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Hendo. But before I let you go,
1:20:19
we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Add on Daunte's life, our mission is equipping
1:20:23
men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience.
1:20:27
So the main link I've got for you today is a link to where you can go and buy your copy of Hendo,
1:20:31
the American athlete. It really was a fantastic read. If you're a fan of MMA in general, it's a
1:20:36
great book. But specifically if you're a Dan Henderson fan, it's a must have, it's a must read.
1:20:40
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this,
1:20:44
please subscribe right and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live
1:20:48
at your event or on your podcast to shoot me an email to info@undaunton.life. That's i-n-f-o
1:20:53
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1:20:58
everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:21:01
Just go to www.undaunted.life. And also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:21:06
us to use their music for our content. The musical in this podcast is our song Perpetua,
1:21:11
which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description.
1:21:16
I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual
1:21:22
mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.