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WEC interim lightweight champ Ben Henderson's schedule on hold after eye injury
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Ben Henderson was less than a half-minute from getting out unscathed from his stunning win Saturday in San Antonio, Tex. against Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone.
Henderson won a unanimous decision to claim the interim lightweight belt in the WEC and set up a date to unify the title with Jamie Varner. But the timeline of that fight is not going to be set for at least a week due to an injury to Henderson's left eye.
Henderson appeared to be out of the woods after he escaped a graphic kimura attempt by Cerrone in the final minute of the fifth round and regained the standing posture position that helped convincingly gain him the second and third rounds.
Although Henderson averted damage from Cerrone's constant flurry of up-kicks during the balance of the fight, he could not get away from what turned out to be the last one, as Cowboy's heel found its way directly into the soon-to-be champ's left eye.
"Twenty seconds left in the fight, I get caught with an upkick," Henderson said. "It swells my eye up and I'm just like, 'That's just great. Awesome.' He kicked me in my eyeball."
Henderson went to his regular eye specialist in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Monday to assess the damage.
"He said he had never seen anything like it before," Henderson said. "My cornea is exactly the way it was after my eye surgery; I had the PRK back in July. But my iris and something else in my eyeball got pushed forward, which makes me look as if I am near-sighted right now. He said that's kind of strange, he'd never seen that. That kind of threw me for a loop.
"I'm going to give it a week off to rest, recover and naturally heal up on its own. I'll go back in a week and have him take a look at it again. Obviously I'm not going to do any boxing or MMA sparring. I asked if I could do any wrestling or jiu jitsu, and he said no. He said no running, no jumping, no working out whatsoever. But it's not a detatched retina."
The irony for Henderson is that he built the majority of his 10-1 record fighting nearly blind. His formerly terrible eyesight caused him to wear the thick glasses he sported right up until the time he would enter the cage for his matches. The PRK surgery he received three months prior to the Cerrone fight is the sight-improving procedure favored by athletes.
Immediately after the fight, his eye was a lesser problem for Henderson than his bout of severe dehydration. He needed four IV bags to rehydrate, and was having difficulty so soon after the decision was rendered that he needed help walking back to the locker room.
"My coaches said after the fight I wasn't sweating at all," Henderson said. "I was bone-dry on my chest and stuff. That isn't good. You should be sweating at least a little bit after a fight. I went back to the locker room, sort of just collapsed after the fight. Barely hanging on."
Despite his compromised condition, Henderson appeared to never lose his wind despite Cerrone's onslaught of quality submission attempts. Cerrone was particularly effective in the early part of the first round, and through most of the final two rounds.
"Donald is a Terminator. That dude is amazing," Henderson said. "In the fourth round I was feeling the effects of the dehydration and he was getting into his groove. A lot of fighters have confidence in certain abilities, and I have confidence in my jiu jitsu defense and my escapability. So I wasn't really too worried or nervous about any of his submissions.
"The most I was worried about were his triangles. They were tight around my head, but he couldn't lock them up really tight."
(Note: Henderson recently appeared with the author on Rear Naked Choke Radio. Hear the entire interview here)
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