After opting to jump ship from the UFC to Bellator this year, Ben Henderson continues to dance to the beat of his drum by announcing that he’s going to retire in 2017 in order to join the military.
“It’s looking that way,” Henderson said of his plan to retire when his 33, during a Bellator media call. “We’ll see how it all plays out, but I do want to retire when I’m somewhat younger and be able to speak coherently to my grandchildren. The other thing was enlisting into military of some sort.”
Henderson, who will fight for Bellator’s lightweight title tonight against Michael Chandler, didn’t tell the promotion about his plans before he signed up, but it seems that serving his country is something that’s been on his mind for a while.
“I think serving is a lost art,” Henderson stated. “I think seriously we are lost today – our society, our country. Something is wrong with us. We are jacked up in the head.
“We celebrate morons who are solely focused on social media, and when I raise my kids, I want to stress to them the importance of doing real stuff for our country. Being a good person. That would be me going out of my way to do something for my country and raise my kids and say, hey, look at this. Here’s something I did for this country.”
Why now though?
Henderson says that 33 is the oldest he can be in order to still join certain branches of the military, though it sounds as if he’s willing to serve wherever he’s needed.
“I’d do whatever,” Henderson said. “If it was cleaning the window, but I’m cleaning the window for my country, sure, no problem. It would be kind of boring and sucky, but I’m a humble man. If it happens to be something on the front lines, that’s not ideal, but I’m cool with that, as well.”
Given his unique set of skills it seems highly unlikely the military would have the former UFC lightweight champion peeling potatoes for the troops though!
