During the opening moments of Dan Henderson’s Strikeforce debut last night, the decorated vet continued to add his ‘Hendo’s Greatest Hits’ highlight reel, as it didn’t take long to floor Jake Shield’s with his vaunted right hand (seriously, Spike’s Deadliest Warrior should test that thing for its PSI). Of course, Shields showed a ton of heart and endured, before making Henderson a fixture on the mat for the next four rounds.
For some time now MMA insiders have regarded Shields as one of the world’s best welterweights, and perhaps because he’s still relatively new to competing at 185, not too many people expected him to roll over Henderson in the fashion that he did. In Henderson’s case, he’s never really cared for cutting down to middleweight (many here at Fix prefer to add weight hourly), and it sounds like the cut might have affected his performance (thanks to Sherdog for the quote).
“I had a good one and a half, two rounds,” said Henderson, who admitted he ran into some difficulty with his weight cut. “I just got a little tired for whatever reason. Jake had a great game plan. He covered well on top and stayed there, and I did a very bad job getting up. He deserves all the respect.”
We agree. Shields may not be a walking KO machine, but technically the guy’s a beast, and it’s nice to see Henderson giving him his props, fatigue or not. Now it’s going to be interesting to see how negotiations go between Strikeforce and Shields…two words: upper hand.