Benson Henderson admits he had hidden toothpick in mouth for ‘a lot of fights,’ recalls time he accidentally swallowed it

Now that he’s retired, Benson Henderson not has to play coy on the subject of one of many greatest questions that adopted him all through his MMA profession.

So, sure: Henderson did certainly struggle with a toothpick in his mouth. Extra than simply as soon as.

“For lots of fights, I had the toothpick, yeah,” Henderson admitted lately on The MMA Hour. “For lots of fights. It was only a dangerous behavior. I might actually, like, exit to lunch or dinner or breakfast, no matter — , you might have the toothpicks from the restaurant. I might simply neglect I’ve it in, I might follow, I might do no matter. I’d go away it in for fights.”

Henderson’s distinctive relationship with toothpicks was all the time one of many crazier mysteries in MMA throughout his days as UFC light-weight champion. After first being noticed during his 2012 title defense against Nate Diaz, the toothpick continued to pop up once in a while throughout Henderson’s octagon career, typically to the bewilderment of followers, UFC officers, and fellow fighters alike who puzzled how an expert athlete might really compete towards the very best on this planet with a toothpick hidden in his mouth.

By some means, although, Henderson did simply that.

And solely as soon as — again in his pre-UFC days — did Henderson’s precarious behavior really threaten to ship him to the hospital due to a toothpick state of affairs gone awry.

“I’d graduated school, after which I went residence to shock my mother,” Henderson stated. “I stunned her when she was coming down the steps, and I had a toothpick in like I all the time do, and I used to be somewhat bit older. I used to be mature sufficient to appreciate how dumb that was, how not sensible that was, how loopy that was. However I scared her — and I swallowed my toothpick.

“She was coming down the steps. I’m going, ‘A-ha! Boo!’ And I scare my mother, somewhat brief 4-foot-9 Korean girl. She’s like, ‘Oh!’ After which she noticed me swallow my toothpick — after which she received actually scared. Like, the extent of frightened-ness on her face was hilarious, it was tremendous humorous. So I began laughing as I’m choking on my toothpick, I began laughing much more. Then I swallowed the dang factor. I used to be choking and I used to be laughing much more.

“I don’t suppose something occurred,” Henderson continued. “I believe there’s no everlasting injury. I used to be like, ‘Am I’m OK?? Is there something unsuitable with me??’ And I went within the mirror, examine my mouth out. I used to be like, ‘Ah, I believe I’m OK.’ My mother hit me, like, ‘What are you doing?! Don’t do this with a toothpick in your mouth!! Oh my God!’”

Fortuitously, Henderson stated that was the one time his toothpick proclivity reared its head in a doubtlessly dangerous means.

A father of 4, Henderson advised MMA Combating in 2022 that he’d finally given up toothpicks for good out of worry of his kids making an attempt to duplicate the behavior to doubtlessly harmful outcomes.

And to his shock, it wasn’t an excessive amount of of a drastic change.

“Not as laborious as I assumed it’d be,” Henderson stated with amusing.

“I simply began chewing gum extra. As a substitute of toothpick, I’d would simply have a bit of gum, so then I began chewing gum means an excessive amount of. Nevertheless it wasn’t that onerous.”