According to a March 4 report from MMA Junkie, Benson Henderson essentially Rickroll'd the MMA community by calling out UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre.
Rickrolling refers to a bait-and-switch tactic, where a person claims something is relevant to the topic at hand, only to lure people somewhere else completely.
"Everyone's going out calling out fights: 'Oh, I want to fight this guy, I want to fight that guy,'" Henderson told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). "I didn't know – if that's how the UFC works, if that's the type of organization it is where you can just willy-nilly go around calling out who you want to fight next, then sure. If that's how the UFC as a business operates, you call out who you want next, and that's your next guy, I understand that. I'll do that – I'll call out who I want next.
"But if that's not how it's supposed to work, if that's just a fluke, just one or two rare cases of it happening in the UFC and you're not supposed to call out who you want next, then whatever. Cool – I won't call out who I want next and I'll face whoever they put in front of me, like always."
So basically, Henderson led people to believe that he wanted to fight St-Pierre, when in his heart he actually wanted to fight Gilbert Melendez and Anthony Pettis. He basically called out St-Pierre just to make headlines, knowing full well that the UFC would put him up against Pettis instead.
"People don't realize how tough Gil is," Henderson said of Melendez, who he faces next. "Gil has been a top two, three on the planet at 155 for a long time. He's a tough fighter, he comes from a great team and he's going to have a great game plan. I know how tough he is. He has big wins over some of the top-name 155-pounders who have been up there for a long time. I think as soon as people start realizing how tough he is and how good he really is, then they'll come around."
Perhaps more shocking than his comments about Melendez are the heated words he had to say about Pettis, who may be next in line for a crack at the belt that "Smooth" holds.
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