The long and storied history of Dan Henderson is written on his 46-year-old face. Scarred cheeks, flat nose, cauliflowered ears, he is the “after” photo of what a legendary MMA career looks like.
Thing is, even at his age, he’s not done yet; there is at least one more night left in his career. Even after all he’s experienced, the best night of them all might still be ahead of him.
At Saturday night’s UFC 204, one of the greatest American fighters ever to strap on gloves will throw leather for the final time. The ol’ gunslinger has repeatedly said that win or lose, he’ll walk away after the final shootout.
“I guess eventually I’ve got to say I’m done, and really there could be no better ending than to finish on top,” he said during a recent media scrum interview (h/t MMA Heat). “I definitely have put my years in. After 20 years, haven’t you seen enough of me already?”
Yes. Also, he has given more than enough of himself to the sport. Still, what a Hollywood ending it would be if he were to walk out on top. “Improbable” wouldn’t begin to describe it. Impossible? Miraculous? Something like that.
At 46 years, 48 days old (to be exact), he would be the oldest to win a UFC championship in history, topping his former teammate Randy Couture by over two years.
A 46-year-old with losses in six of his last nine fights should not be fighting for a UFC belt. But after fans bombarded the UFC on social media, here we are.
As a UFC middleweight title matchup, Michael Bisping vs. Dan Henderson is ludicrous.
As a showdown, it’s theater.
The first time around, you remember what happened.
Most likely, you can picture it.
Henderson feeds Bisping an inside left kick/left jab combo over and over, funnels him toward the trap, and then, Kaboom! The last inside leg kick sets up the H-Bomb, and it detonates on target, becoming one of the most iconic knockouts in MMA history—the kind that upon viewing the first time, shocks your spine straight.
At the time, Henderson might have been closing in on another UFC title opportunity, but instead, he bolted for a bigger contract with then-rival promotion Strikeforce.
There, he won another belt to add to his collection, joining the PRIDE welterweight and middleweight belts.
But with that, his chances for winning UFC gold seemed left behind. When he returned in 2011, he was 41, and his division belonged to the transcendent Jon Jones. Things seemed about over when Henderson lost three in a row in 2013 and then again when he was finished in back-to-back bouts with Daniel Cormier and Gegard Mousasi. It’s hard to ignore such streaks when the owner is comfortably into middle-age.
Yet through it all, Henderson has exuded the same stoic confidence and the same come-get-some comportment that instantly makes him one of the most feared people upon entering a room.
You hear him talk, you see what he drives, you look at his countenance and it all seems perfect. This man is a Clint Eastwood character in real life.
“I hope he gets aggressive with me because I want him to come forward,” Henderson said during the media scrum. “He moves well and backs up a lot and moves side to side well, but I like it when they come at me.”
That last phrase: that’s the message, and that’s what he really wants to say. You can see it in the hint of smile on his face—the twinkle in his eye.
I like it when they come at me.
Isn’t that exactly what you’d expect from the ol’ gunslinger? After all, this is a man who has won bouts from 183 pounds to heavyweight, who spanned multiple generations and who once won three fights in a single night against opponents who outweighed him by as much as 50 pounds. He is a man who knocked out Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Wanderlei Silva and Fedor Emelianenko.
And mostly, he’s done it by anchoring himself to the mat and firing. Like a showdown. Like a cowboy.
Most of the time, that kind of approach has worked in his favor.
Henderson has knocked opponents down or out with any variety of strikes: straights, hooks, jabs, uppercuts. Even a ridiculous reverse elbow invented on the fly. The man who started his career as a grinding, Greco-Roman style wrestler with two stints in the Olympics has transformed into one of the most dangerous and cunning knockout artists ever—his right hand an all-time weapon of the sport.
This is the draw of Henderson; it’s also the danger.
MMA is not a young person’s sport for good reason. The body is more pliable in youth; it is faster to adapt and recover; it is easier to push.
As willing as Henderson is to firefight, it doesn’t change the reality that hides just below the surface. He is a compromised fighter.
Despite his recent insistence that he could fight four or five more years if he wanted to, his bouts now bring with them a certain level of unease.
His chin, once an impenetrable block of granite, has been chipped away over time. Never knocked out in his first 39 pro fights, he has been KO’d in three of his last four losses and all within the last three years. Beyond that, he’s been knocked down seven times in his last seven fights, according to FightMetric.
This is partly a function of the top opposition he’s faced, but it’s also an eventuality of time. You fire enough bullets, and you’re bound to take a few back.
Henderson is already an extreme outlier in terms of age. Of the 60-plus middleweights on the current UFC roster, only 41-year-old Anderson Silva is within five years of his age.
Still, no one can discount the possibility that Henderson may win. Regardless of his recent troubles, he has won two of his past three, and both Hector Lombard and Tim Boetsch can attest that Henderson still has the trigger hand and firepower to end things in a flash—the same things Bisping remembers so well.
A similar outcome in the rematch would add another extraordinary chapter to Henderson’s legacy, which is mostly brilliant but also complicated. For a few years, Henderson was one of the many fighters who used testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) with the permission of state athletic commissions, and he did some of his best work during the time. Still, he was one of the few who spoke candidly about his usage.
Further, since the end of the TRT era and the arrival of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to handle testing, Henderson has been among the most tested fighters on the roster, passing all 15 of his tests over the last two years, according to the USADA official website.
Soon enough, all of that will be left to history to pore over and examine. The ol’ gunslinger will move on, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
Bisping‘s already on that list. A repeat performance would only add a fine polish to what Henderson has accomplished. A win isn’t a necessity, it would just be … poetic. Like theater. Like a Western. Henderson has the stage every fighter dreams of. Fight, win, walk away on top. With the championship in hand and into the sunset.
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