With the success that 40-year old Dan Henderson (27-8) had this past weekend capturing the Strikeforce light heavyweight title, the next question was who would be next for the former PRIDE champ?
Realistically, meeting the winner of the upcoming Gegard Mousasi vs. Mike Kyle makes sense, but after his victory over Rafael “Feijão” Cavalcante this past weekend, Henderson said he’d be open to meeting Fedor Emelienanko (32-3, 1NC) if he was offered the fight.
Henderson spoke to MMAjunkie.com and had this to say about a possible matchup. “Obviously, he’s still one of the top guys out there in the world, and it would be a huge challenge. It would interest me to go up.”
Now it appears that the Russian’s camp is interested in the idea of meeting Henderson, as a source told FightersOnlyMagazine.co.uk that Fedor “is giving serious consideration to the prospect of fighting newly crowned Dan Henderson at 205 pounds.”
Fedor lost for the third time in his career, suffering a second round TKO loss to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in the opening quarterfinal match of the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament. Silva dominated the Russian in the second, bloodying Fedor’s right eye so bad that the doctors were forced to call the fight for the Russian’s own safety.
A move to light heavyweight would certainly make sense in the eyes of many fans and critics, as Fedor remains on the small side for heavyweights, weighing at 230 lbs against “Bigfoot” Silva, who himself weighed in at 264 lbs, but reportedly walks around anywhere from 280-290 lbs.
It would be the first time that the Russian would have to cut weight for a fight as he’s always fought as a heavyweight, so it would not be surprising to see a request from M-1 Global for acatchweight bout of 210 or 215 lbs being made.
Offering the light heavyweight title to Fedor doesn’t make much sense on paper, but with a shallow 205 lb division, it would certainly make things much more entertaining for Strikeforce and for fans.