UFC 144: Why UFC Needs Benson Henderson to Defeat Frankie Edgar

Benson Henderson is the most exciting and charismatic lightweight fighter in UFC and he needs to walk away from UFC 144 with the lightweight championship on Saturday night. 

Frankie Edgar has been a great champion. He is one of the best fighters in the world and deserves to be recognized as such. 

The problem with Edgar is that he doesn't resonate with a large enough audience to keep things interesting. While we should just focus on what happens inside the octagon, it is hard to ignore the historically low buy rates of the shows that he has headlined. 

Two specific examples are his fights against Gray Maynard last year. Granted, the first one took place at UFC 125 on New Year's Day, so it was always going to be at a disadvantage. Sure enough, that show did with only 270,000 buys. 

After that fight was over, fans and analysts were talking about it as a contender for best fight of the year. It was a great fight, with Edgar coming back from an early onslaught to force a five-round draw. 

The two had a rematch at UFC 136 last October. All the build was around determining who was the best following their great fight. This fight did not disappoint at all, with Edgar knocking out Maynard in the fourth round. 

Despite having the rematch and a great fight just 10 months earlier to build off, that show did 225,000 pay-per-view buys. 

Henderson is a special fighter. He has a natural charm and charisma to him on the microphone and unlike Edgar, he has an exciting style that the fans gravitate towards. He had one of the best fights of 2011 against Clay Guida, though no one saw it since UFC didn't air that fight on television (It was on the first UFC on FOX card in November).

If somehow, someway Henderson can find a way to win this fight, he would bring the lightweight division back to prominence. Fans would go out of their way to buy his fights, because they know what he can do. 

Edgar can do a lot of things in the octagon. He has beaten some of the best fighters in the world, but he does not draw an audience. 

Henderson is the right man to lead the lightweight division into the future. He just has to take care of business on Saturday night to make it happen. 

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