UFC president Dana White has a lot going on with the impending UFC 136 fight card about to happen and the UFC fan expo happening in Houston.
After UFC 136, White has to start thinking about a lot of things inside his promotions divisions. The lightweight division will have a true champion come Sunday, and the middleweight division might have its No. 1 contender.
But who deserves it more, the winner of Chael Sonnen and Brian Stann or Dan Henderson?
“We’ve got to see what happens here,” White told the media after the UFC 136 pre-fight press conference. “The winner of [Sonnen-Stann] deserves a shot at Anderson Silva? It’d be tough to say no. But if Henderson beats Shogun, it’d be tough to say that Henderson doesn’t deserve the shot either. So we’ll see what happens.”
UFC 139 will be Henderson’s return to the UFC after a short year long stint with Strikeforce. Henderson has knocked out the last three fighters he’s faced, including Renato Sobral, Rafael Cavalcante and Fedro Emelianenko.
Henderson has also won six of his last seven fights since Silva beat him at UFC 82. If Sonnen were to beat Stann, it would be in his first fight since his loss to Silva in August of 2010.
On the other hand, if Stann were to beat Sonnen, then Stann would be on a four-fight win streak, all of which have come at the middleweight level. Stann dropped down from light heavyweight for good after a loss to Phil Davis at UFC 109.
But as for now, Silva is on the shelf with an injury.
“He has bursitis in his shoulder,” White said. “The doctor told him he needs to rest it for eight weeks, and he’s doing physical therapy. It’s not like he’s got some injury that needs surgery or anything like that. As amazing as this guy is, we forget this guy is 37 years old.”
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com