Dan Henderson celebrates win over Fedor Emelianenko
A light heavyweight bout between former Strikeforce champ Dan Henderson (29-8) and former UFC title holder Lyoto ‘The Dragon’ Machida (18-3) will reportedly be featured in the main event of the UFC 157 pay-per-view event.
The two were expected to appear at UFC 156 in early February but will now compete on February 23, in Anaheim, California.
Tatame.com reported the news earlier today with Fighters Only reporting the same change.
Henderson was to have faced division champ Jon Jones on Sept. 1st at UFC 151 but a knee injury forced ‘Hendo’ off the card at the last minute. Machida was offered the fight with Jones at UFC 152 but turned down the bout declaring that there wasn’t enough time to properly prepare.
Henderson has won four in a row and is 7-1 over his last eight fights. His last fight took place just over a year ago in the 2011 “Fight of the Year” bout with Maurucio ‘Shogun’ Rua at UFC 139. ‘Hendo’ would win a unanimous decision. The other three victories in this current run were against mma legend Fedor Emelianenko, Rafael Cavalcante and Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral.
Machida KO’d Ryan Bader last August at UFC on FOX 4, handing ‘Darth’ the first knockout loss of his career. The win for ‘The Dragon’ put him back on the winning track after a technical submission defeat against Jones at UFC 140. The other win for Machida was a knockout kick at UFC 129 against Randy Couture.