Name: Dan Henderson's Crazy Punching Power and Fighting After Knee Surgery
Uploaded: 2023-10-24T17:17:54.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dan Henderson's Crazy Punching Power and Fighting After Knee Surgery' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dan Henderson's Crazy Punching Power and Fighting After Knee Surgery' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-24. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience
When did you realize that you had that kind of crazy power because it's kind of
funny that a guy who started out grappling and
Didn't do any sparring at all for his first four
MMA fights was one of the most dangerous strikers in the sport
I don't know. I mean, I grew up playing baseball and threw really hard
and then
You know when I when I started
And not sparring started MMA, you know, I'd hit the Pat or you know focus mitts
and everybody say oh shit you hit hard
It's just natural, but yeah, so I guess
It just took me a while to figure out where to put it
There's a few I think Gomi. I think Takanori Gomi started out as a pitcher
Which makes sense you see the way that guy throws punches just fucking whips
his whole body like a fast put a lot of weight into it
Yeah, it's that's a actually probably a great thing to start out with just to
learn how to put a lot of force behind your arm
Driving yeah
And everything yeah, it completely makes sense if you think about it
Yeah, cuz you think about how many guys practice medicine balls now, you know
They whip medicine balls against the wall to advance your punching power
Yeah, it's hard to teach. I mean yeah, you either have power you don't have
power
Yeah, I mean you can definitely get better at mechanics to make it harder mm-hmm,
but not
Not like what a lot of guys have naturally right isn't it wild. That's a crazy
thing because you can't really tell
Sometimes by looking at guys like there's guys that just me well you look
pretty strong
But there's some guys like they just don't look like they carry that much power,
but they have crazy power
Right, it's it's so it's weird power is a weird thing
No, I think you either have nuclear power or you don't you know, but and again
I think a lot of that is it is mechanics, but a lot of that most mechanics come
naturally like some of those
You know pitchers that can throw the ball so goddamn fast. Yeah, and some of
them are skinny as fuck. Yeah
how the hell that you know, they just
Whip that thing around and then there's also your frame, you know, like some
guys just have bigger shoulders bigger hands
They're just naturally designed to hit things more more leverage points
Yeah, it's uh, it's just when you think back like as a pioneer in the sport
I mean, it's pretty wild what you guys did pretty wild that you entered into
the sport that at the time
It was just kind of a way to make some money, right? It wasn't there was I mean
when I started doing the post fight interviews
It was banned from cable. The only way you could get it was direct TV. I
actually got direct TV
That's when you started yeah 97 because it was a I
Feel like it was right after it wasn't banned from cable yet
until after I thought I think it was 17
One of those one of those years it was banned from cable and there was a lot of
shenanigans with like Budweiser and you remember like McCain
Yeah, I was trying to keep it out. Yeah for sure. All this human cockfighting.
Yeah. Yeah
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of his no most MMA guys weren't because it was so
ridiculous
There was no deaths in MMA to speak of not like in MMA in boxing, which we have
you know a few every year
Right, and they were trying to say it was more dangerous. I'm like, I don't
think it is
I don't think it is. I mean, they're all everything's even combat sports
dangerous
Right to say that MMA is more dangerous. It's just ignorance. He just didn't
understand what was happening. No, yeah
I I have heard that over the years a lot of different things. Yeah, I got
nothing bad to say about MMA
I mean, I grew up as a wrestler and
you know kind of competing what I've done my whole life and and
Yeah, I don't feel like
It affected me in a bad way at all, you know if anything it was positive things
that made me tougher made me
You know have more drive and with other things in my life
Well, you're very fortunate that you came out of it on the other end, you know
healthy
Yeah
We know guys who haven't right now. I know there's a few guys
I'm not saying that it hasn't affected some guys. Yeah, I'm just saying
fortunately I
Went through it
Fairly good. No, you went through it great
I think a lot of it was and randy's the same way just being smart and training
a lot of these guys just
Bang way too much in practice. Yeah, and i'm always a advocate of
Sometimes not all the time, but sometimes in training if you're training to
fight you have to fight in training. Yeah
And how do you know how to manage that?
Yeah, I think over the years, you know, you just you definitely have one
We have one hard solid
spar day a week
And then more technical sparring
Another day with the big gloves on and then
The other days of the mma gloves, you know, we're still going hard, but not
with the striking part just lighter strikes
Which you know, it's kind of hard sometimes some of these guys when they go
lighter that they're
You know, they slow down their punches instead of you know keeping your speed
there and your timing
and
Just touching each other and not punching as hard. So yeah, that's kind of a
hard thing that to get used to and
It took me a while to have that control. I would accidentally
Drop guys a lot in practice because I didn't have control when I was you know
kind of new to the sport
Is there a way that you do now where you train guys to learn how to punch fast
but not hit hard?
Yeah, you yell at them, you know
Don't do it in slow motion. Yeah, don't do it in slow motion, but also don't
don't you don't need to hit hard, but
Don't go slow, you know, yeah
You just got to remind them because guys just do it naturally
What's kind of crazy for you as a pioneer because you guys had to kind of
figure it out feel
A pioneer I hear it. What's what's a good word? I don't know, but yeah, but you
are that is a good word
But you're just does make me feel you're the definition of a pioneer. I mean
UFC 17. I mean come on, man
That's uh, that was back in the dark days. I feel like I should have a fucking
panda
Do some gold
Yeah, yeah, but I mean there's no better word for it
But back then you guys had to kind of learn along the way and as the sport
evolved
I've always said this that there's not a sport that you could ever point to
that has evolved more since 1993
To 2023 there's nothing even close
You watch fights today like the makache of volkanovski fight. I mean everything's
so high level now
Everyone's so good in every aspect of the game. Yeah, that was a good. I mean
their first one was good one
That was uh, I didn't expect that. I didn't expect it either. Yeah, that guy
evolved he got better
He got better and he figured out a lot of the things that he was doing wrong in
that fight and then setting up that head kick with those
I thought volk was gonna get him this
I just felt like he had more tools
and
easier adjustments
Did you ever have to take a fight like that on 10 days notice because that's
what's crazy about it. They took it so short notice
Yeah, a number of times especially in pride. That was pretty common. Yeah pride
They would just call you up like a week before the fight, right? I thought big
nog for he was heavyweight champ at the time
I'm 10 days notice
jesus
Yeah, I mean there was there was a couple other there was
I fought uh bustamante on probably a week's notice
So when during the pride day two and a half months after a knee surgery a new
acl surgery. No way
They called me up and I was hunting out in colorado
And they tracked me down on my buddy's cell phone up in the mountains and said
hey
You need to and I didn't have a contract at the time and I went and had knee
surgery because I tore my knee and and uh
It's like well, if you don't take the fight. We don't know what will happen
with any future contracts
So i'm like, all right
I'll do it, but you're paying me
win or lose
You know the
The win bonus also and so I took the fight
Luckily, I knocked him out real quick with that knee
So yeah