UFC Quick Quote: Benson Henderson will ‘kill' any opponent ‘mentally weak' enough to fight him on steroids

"My thing with the whole steroid thing and whatnot -- like I understand part of a competitors nature is to take whatever edge, whatever advantage you can get to be the best. To that I just say if I'm facing a person - it happened in college wrestling, sadly it shouldn't, but it happened in college wrestling people on steroids and whatnot. But if I know someone is mentally weak enough to take steroids, ‘Oh, I need the extra edge, I need to do this', and they know it's illegal, they know it's wrong and they do it. If you're so mentally weak that you have to take steroids, me five-rounds in the cage with you, I will destroy you. Cause you are mentally weak. So I'm all for it, if you want to take drugs go ahead and take drugs I don't really care but I'm going to whoop your butt because you are mentally weak and that's where you win fights in the mental stage. If you're weak enough to break down, I'm going to kill you."

-- Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight champion Benson Henderson tells fans at a UFC Fight Club Q&A session prior to last Friday's (Feb. 1, 2013) UFC 156: "Aldo vs. Edgar" weigh-ins that he doesn't care if his opponents are on steroids or performance enhancing drugs of any kind when he faces them, because he is going to "destroy" them anyways. "Smooth" takes a different perspective from many when it comes to steroids in mixed martial arts (MMA), saying if his opponents have to resort to cheating, they have already lost the fight before even getting into the cage. Henderson certainly has a point, as the ratio of fighters who are busted for banned substances and lose their respective fights to the ones who are busted and win is quite lopsided. In a sport like MMA, fighters need to be in more than just good physical shape, they have to be mentally sound too. And as Henderson explain it, you can't have both if you're taking performance-enhancing drugs.



Henderson (18-2) is next scheduled to compete on April 20, 2013 when he puts his 155-pound title on the line for the third time against Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez in the main event of UFC on FOX 7 in San Jose, California.