Benson Henderson knows the end is near.

He’s the one who set the terms: three more fights.

And the former UFC and WEC lightweight champion has every intention to add the elusive Bellator crown to his trophy case and hang onto it until the end.

As it turns out, the trio of bouts remaining on his final four-fight deal would take him all the way through the promotion’s Lightweight World Grand Prix, which begins at Bellator 292 on Friday (10 p.m., Showtime) in San Jose, Calif.

Henderson (30-11, 14 finishes) headlines against the current champion, the unbeaten Usman Nurmagomedov, in what represents his last chance to hold a title belt again.

“I will make sure I will work my butt off. I will do everything I physically possibly can to make sure these are the four best performances of my career,” Henderson, who won the first matchup of his career-capping four-fight deal in September, told The Post on Tuesday via Zoom. ”If they will be the last, yes, they are the last.”

Henderson, who ruled the 155-pound landscape as the UFC titleholder for 18 months a decade ago, arrived in Bellator as a high-profile free agent acquisition in 2016. 

Having recently moved up to 170 pounds, he was given an immediate shot at champion Andrey Koreshkov (falling via decision) and earning a crack at the lightweight crown late in the year against champ Michael Chandler (coming out on the wrong end of a closely contested split decision).

The next several years were streaky for Henderson.

He carried a four-fight win streak — longest since his UFC title reign — into the pandemic and proceeded to drop three in a row. 

All the while, he dealt with a body that just wouldn’t cooperate, from one blown-out knee (torn ACL, MCL, PCL, both menisci) to tearing the other ACL a few years later.

All that is to say, getting a last chance to be a champion means a great deal more to him now that it might have when he was younger.

“I think, early my career, having the success I did early on, I won’t say I took it for granted, but I just kind of naturally assumed, Oh, yeah, this is pretty normal, pretty par for course,” recalls Henderson, who competed in nine UFC or WEC title fights between ages 25 and 29. “… But now, at 39, I see though it is a very big deal and to kind of appreciate the journey, to stop and smell the roses along the way. So I know that getting a title shot is a very big deal.”

Henderson will hit the big four-oh before he completes his final contract, and his pair of rebuilt knees doesn’t make it any easier to keep up with the top-flight lightweights on the Bellator roster.

In speaking with The Post recently, former multi-time UFC title challenger and analyst Chael Sonnen observed that, while he considers Henderson to be “awesome” and clearly respects him, the ex-champ may be looking at his recent results through rose-tinted glasses.

“The one thing about Benson is it’s very clear that Benson has slowed down — to everybody except for Benson,” Sonnen said. “Benson doesn’t believe that. Benson believes that in these losses, somebody got lucky or he didn’t prepare correctly.”

Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, Sonnen stopped short of qualifying that self-belief as a negative.

“It makes him equally as dangerous as he ever was for the first seven or eight minutes,having that belief factor.” said Sonnen, who wrapped up his competitive MMA career in 2019. “But he’s a competitor. Benson expects to win this fight. I will tell you, fighting a world champion would intimidate most people, but it won’t intimidate Benson, or fighting a guy that’s undefeated would intimidate most people, but it won’t intimidate Benson. 

“So, many people think Nurmagomedov got a good draw here. I understand that point. But I think Benson would rather get the hardest ones out of the way right at the beginning, too.”

Whether things go the way of Henderson, who respected Sonnen’s right to his opinion but does indeed not believe he has slowed down, against Nurmagomedov (16-0, 13 finishes), the 24-year-old cousin of undefeated and retired ex-UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, seems irrelevant to his plans for the final fights.

Clearly, Henderson would rather go out on top, beating Nurmagomedov and claiming victory twice more to win the $1 million tournament, but he’s committed to investing his energy for the sport into another fighter: his wife, Maria Henderson.

Having met Maria at the gym while she was training jiu-jitsu and later proposing to her after his final successful UFC title defense on national TV, the Hendersons have steadily worked toward her own amateur MMA debut in 2021 and, after going 3-0 in ammy boots, winning her first pro fight last July.

Maria Henderson will be in action at Bellator 293 on March 31.

“I’ve had a good long career. I had fun, did a lot of things, been a lot of different places, yada, yada. Now, it’s my wife’s turn,” Henderson said. … “She supported me, my career, and she helped me out. Now’s my turn to help her out and let her shine. It’s gonna be her turn to be able to go to practice all the time. If the kids are sick, I got it, I’ll stay home, I’ll look after the kids. I’ll pick him up from school drop off at soccer practice. I’ll do all that stuff so that my wife can shine.”