What do you do when you have accumulated numerous international wrestling ackolades? You enter NHB of course! Dan joined wrestling and NHB veterans; Randy Couture, Tom Erikson, Frank Trigg, among others forming the rAw [Real American Wrestlers] team. This group has dominated NHB, while actively competing in international wrestling competitions. Dan Henderson has won a lot of wrestling titles and now has added '97 Brazil Open Champion [6/5/97] and UFC 17 Lightweight Champion [5/13/98, this under 200lbs class was before the creation of the middleweight division], beating Allan Goes and Carlos Newton in the same night. He fought Frank Shamrock in The Contenders. But most recently he has won his first two matches in the much anticipated, RINGS 32-man Mega-Battle Tournament: King of Kings. He made it to the finals phase of the tournament, which is to be held on February 25, 2000, with the chance of winning over $200,000 in prize money. I called Dan on November 14, 1999, to get his thoughts on his fights in RINGS, why he left the rAw team, his wrestling goals, and what his plans are for the future.

FCF: Dan, you just won your first two matches in the RINGS Mega-Battle tournament. Tell us about your matches?
Dan Henderson: Well, the first one, I wasn't sure about. I didn't know anything about the guy, other than he's a Greco guy [Gogitidze Bakouri, RINGS]. That would make it a little more interesting. I have been working a lot on my striking and on my feet. That's basically how I dominated the guy. I just beat him up on his feet. He wasn't able to do much to me because we were both Greco guys and I don't think he had very good strikes. And that's basically how it ended.

FCF: What about your second match?
DH: Um, pretty much the same thing. I pretty much dominated him [Hiromitsu Kanehara, RINGS] on his feet [by] striking. He tried to go to the ground with me a couple times and I just let him up. I just beat him up on his feet. He was a lot tougher than the first guy. He had a little bit more heart. He was a lot better striking and kicking. I was surprised…he took a lot of hard shots. I have to hand it to him, he did take a lot and kept on going. He was pretty tough. We went down to the ground a couple times, then came right back up.

FCF: How rounds were there?
DH: There were two, five-minute rounds. And if the judges decided it was a draw, it would go one more five minute round.

FCF: Your second opponent, Hiromitsu Kanehara, squeaked out a victory over Jeremy Horn. Both of your opponents were from the RINGS organization, did you have a specific strategy planned against them?
DH: I watch the Jeremy Horn fight and Kanehara had some pretty good strikes and kicks, so I knew he would be a lot better than my first guy. He was pretty squirmy on the ground, and rolled around real well. He tried a couple of submissions, but neither him or Jeremy Horn were close to submitting each other. I was real comfortable on my feet. Being a wrestler, it kind of gives me the option of taking the guy down or staying up on my feet. I don't feel any of these guys are good enough to take me down. That's why I worked a lot on my striking and it basically paid off. I felt real confident going into the second fight.

FCF: What have you been doing to improve your striking?
DH: Basically, putting on some boxing gloves and sparring.

FCF: Have you been going to a boxing gym and working out with a boxing coach?
DH: No, just some guys who boxed a lot before and they gave me pointers. Basically, one of the things that I haven't done for my past fights was spar. I hit the pads and the [heavy] bag. I wouldn't get in and mix it up with anybody. It makes a world of difference when you spar with somebody for your timing and balance.

FCF: You are not going to know who your next opponent is going to be until the second 16-man portion of the tournament is held on December 22nd. Do you look forward to fighting anyone of the guys in that bracket?
DH: I don't know exactly who's going to be in the second show. I heard a couple names, but it doesn't really matter to me who I fight. I'm pretty confident either way that I will do well. Out of the four guys that I do know from my side, I'm confident going up against any of them. The two Brazilians [Renato Babalu, Ruas Vale Tudo/Luta Livre and Antonio Noguiera, Ruas Vale Tudo/Jiu-Jitsu] were pretty tough, pretty impressive. But the Russian [Ilioukhine] Mikhail [RINGS, Sambo] seemed decent on his strikes and on the ground, he got some good submissions. But I'm not too worried about that now. I will be able to watch the video a bit more. I haven't even gotten the video yet. I will definitely be watching the video on these guys and know a little bit more and get a strategy together.

FCF: Who do you think are going to be the toughest guys in the tournament?
DH: I don't know. It's hard to say. The Russian looked good, one of the Brazilians was pretty good with his submissions. I think either one of them would be tough.

FCF: Now the most important question, what are you going to do with the money if you win? And don't tell me that you're going to Disneyland.
DH: I'm gonna pay some bills and invest some of it. It will basically not allow me to not worry about money till I'm done wrestling. It's one of the main reasons why I'm fighting right now, just to pay my way, allow me to wrestle and not work.

FCF: You have been a rAw team member for a while, contributing in a large part to the team's success. It was recently released that you have left the rAw team. What happened?
DH: Well, a number of things. I just felt that I could do just as good a job representing myself. I wasn't real happy with some of the things… a couple deals fell through, that I should have got. I was counting on fighting. Within three or four days, I found out that I wasn't fighting basically because my managers dropped the ball and didn't represent me properly. I think that played a large part of it. It pissed me off. I don't know, I guess I just lost confidence in them as managers. We're still on good thems though. I felt that they burned a few bridges with a few organizations and there's not that many organizations out there. They burn bridges and still expect to get fight gigs. Some of the organizations didn't want to deal with Rico and Lou (Chiaparelli) because they thought they were too difficult and too demanding on certain things. There's a lot of fighters out there that will fight for less.

FCF: Is there anything that could happen that would cause you to change your mind and rejoin rAw?
DH: Yeah, I originally just wanted to make deals on my own. If they got me fights, I would still be associated with the rAw team and fight for them. But some of the organizations didn't want to deal with them at all, like RINGS.

FCF: Was that why you moved up to Oregon?
DH: No, I'm from California. I moved up here to train with Randy Couture for wrestling, to try and make the [Olympic] team.

FCF: You have been wrestling and competing for a while. Can you tell us how long you have been wrestling and what titles you have won?
DH: I have been wrestling since I was five years old. The titles I have…when I was growing up, I won most of the national division titles in my age groups, kids, high school, university and open, in Greco-Roman. I won the senior division [above 18 years old] three times for Greco-Roman, made the Olympic team the last two times. So I guess, I have been wrestling for a long time.

FCF: How did you get the nickname "Hollywood"?
DH: I have no idea. [laughs]

FCF: Who first gave it to you?
DH: Lou Chiaparelli.

FCF: Was it a marketing thing? You needed a nickname?
DH: I guess there was a football player named Hollywood Henderson, and he just kept calling me Hollywood.

FCF: You competed against Frank Shamrock in The Contenders and got submitted. Were you working on submissions before this point or did this fight cause you to change your training?
DH: No, I was working on them before, just part-time basically. But I had worked on a good amount of submissions. I had only been doing it for a few months before I went against him. I had an injury that I should have withdrew from the event, but I needed the money so I just went. I thought I might be allright. I learned from that mistake.

FCF: Since entering NHB, how has that changed your training regiment?
DH: I don't really train Jiu-Jitsu for NHB stuff that much, compared to my wrestling. I wrestle a lot. It's been a fairly easy transition for me, just do crosstraining, do a little Jiu-Jitsu, a little boxing. It depends on what's coming up, like I just finished that fight [in RINGS]. I have a lot of wrestling events next year, Olympic qualifiers and stuff starting in February. So I will be training almost strictly for wrestling, I probably won't do much training for the finals for RINGS, as far as NHB stuff. I might do a little boxing here and there, but for the most part, I will be concentrating on my wrestling. That's what I have been doing for my whole life. I've had a goal of getting an Olympic medal, $200 grand or not, I would give up the $200 grand for a gold medal. Basically, I'm just be concentrating on my wrestling this next year. I don't want to do any other fights, other than the finals of this tournament, until after the Olympics.

FCF: How do you specifically train for a fight?
DH: I do pretty much a good combination of boxing and Jiu-Jitsu, a little bit of pummeling wrestling. For the most part, just rolling around and doing some Jiu-Jitsu, and working on submissions. About half Jiu-Jitsu, and half sparring, putting on some gloves and going at it.

FCF: Do you train with any specific Jiu-Jitsu guys?
DH: Not really Jiu-Jitsu guys, there's some guys up in the Portland area. I've been working out at a place called Straight Blast Gym. Randy Couture [former UFC heavyweight champion] and I go there and work out with some of the guys who run the place and anybody else who wants to come out and work out with us. We don't have a huge group of guys that come in and workout with us, just a few guys. It seems to be working fine.

FCF: You really didn't get the respect you deserve until your UFC title, beating Allan Goes [BJJ black belt] and Carlos Newton [Canadian Jiu-Jitsu Champion]. But after that, you disappeared from the scene. What happened?
DH: After the UFC, I didn't really disappear. I just wasn't getting any fights. They turned down one fight because they didn't offer enough money and never came back with a counter offer with the UFC to fight Shamrock. I think they offered me just barely what a title fight should be. I think some words were said between the rAw team managers and the UFC and I don't think we got a call back since. The UFC kind of screwed Randy [Couture] over on his contract about the same time as me. Basically, I didn't get any fights offered to me, or if I did, I didn't hear about them from my managers. I wanted to fight, I needed to fight, but I just didn't get anything.

FCF: What do you hope to achieve and where do you see the future of NHB?
DH: Well, right now, I don't really have any goals in NHB. I don't really care about being UFC champ or whatever. I do want to win this tournament that I'm in, basically because of the money. I don't really care about any titles that I'll achieve for that. All my goals have been in wrestling and I think that's more important to me than NHB. Wrestling is a lot tougher than NHB, for me. I'm not saying nobody's tough in NHB. But I'm saying that as far as overall competition and the training and being in the shape that I have to be, wrestling is a whole lot tougher. Because it's more of a specific sport, sometimes it's tougher to train for it. I guess I don't have any goals in NHB. After the Olympics, I'm sure I will set some goals. And get some specific fights and pick out guys that I want to fight, but not right now.

FCF: Is there anything else you would like to add?
DH: Um, I don't know. Do you have anymore questions? [laughs] I just think that not a lot of people give wrestling the respect that the wrestlers deserve in NHB competitions. I just don't understand why. Wrestlers usually do better than anyone, as a whole. We have a pretty good record. That would be my question.

FCF: Thanks for the interview and good luck in Japan.
DH: Thank you.