Benson Henderson stated he wanted to be like Donald Cerrone fighting as much as possible and he accomplished that for the first two months of this year fighting twice in two months. Unfortunately, he has been absent from the cage since then. He was originally supposed to fight in April of this year against Jorge Masvidal, but was pulled to face off with Brandon Thatch and headline a card in February. Then he was briefly linked to a fight at 155 against Michael Johnson, but he announced his intention to stay at Welterweight and put off fighting until November so he could be on the South Korea card.
He was finally matched up with former top five Welterweight Thiago Alves who has recently flirted with going down to Lightweight, and it made sense for him to beat a former champion at 155 before making the drop. Since returning in 2014, he had gone 2-1 with two decent wins, but an utter destructive loss to Carlos Condit who received a title shot based off his performance. The bad news and injury to Alves has lead to a great opportunity to Jorge Masvidal who was originally supposed to face Henderson so long ago.
Masvidal ended up facing Al Iaquinta in April which he lost by split decision. That snapped a three fight winning streak for Masvidal who had taken out the likes for Pat Healy and James Krause. The never ending weight cut process eventually lead to Masvidal making the jump to 170 which he had not fought at since taking a fight against Paul Daley in 2o10 nearly five years ago. His first back at 170 was a spectacular one considering he took out Cezar Ferreira by TKO which was his first finish in two years. It is a weird choice to make though since masvidal was originally supposed to face off with top ten ranked Dong Hyun Kim, but a more high profile win might be better than a win over a top ranked opponent. It ill only take time to see if this gambit pays off.