UFC 139 will take place Saturday, November 19 from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA. The fight card is stacked with former champions from various MMA promotions, including UFC, PRIDE, WEC and Strikeforce.
Headlining the card will be Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua, two former champions that will be looking to put themselves in line for the shot at the ultimate prize. That is, Jon Jones’ UFC light heavyweight title.
Henderson, a former champion in Strikeforce and PRIDE, is 4-1 in his last five fights with all four of those victories coming via knockout. The last time Henderson fought in the UFC was at UFC 100, where he delivered one of the most memorable knockouts in UFC history by putting Michael Bisping to sleep at the 3:20 mark of Round 2.
Henderson’s opponent, “Shogun” Rua, has a record of 4-3 since joining the UFC in 2007. Two of those wins came by knockout and the other two came via TKO. Of Rua’s three losses in the Octagon, the one that most likely nags at him the most is the loss to Jon Jones at UFC 128 in a fight that saw Jones wrestle the title away from Rua in dominating fashion.
The co-main event of the evening will see former Strikeforce champion Cung Le face off against former PRIDE champion Wanderlei Silva.
Le brings a record of 7-1 into his Octagon debut. Of those wins, five have come via knockout and two via TKO. He will look to add another stoppage victory to that list when he faces the struggling “Axe Murderer.”
Silva has a record of 2-6 since 2006. Of his six losses, four have come via knockout or TKO. After his last loss, a 27-second knockout at the hands of Chris Leben, UFC president Dana White openly expressed the fact that he was considering pulling a “Chuck Liddell” and basically forcing Silva into retirement.
While that did not come to pass, to say that Silva needs a big win in this fight would be an understatement.
Also on the pay-per-view card, former WEC champions Urijah Faber and Brian Bowles will face off, with the winner looking to get a shot at current UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
Full Fight Card
Pay-Per-View
Dan Henderson vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
Cung Le vs. Wanderlei Silva
Brian Bowles vs. Urijah Faber
Martin Kampmann vs. Rick Story
Stephan Bonnar vs. Kyle Kingsbury
Spike TV
Ryan Bader vs. Jason Brilz
Michael McDonald vs. Alex Soto
Facebook Stream
Tom Lawlor vs. Chris Weidman
Nick Pace vs. Miguel Torres
Rafael dos Anjos vs. Gleison Tibau
Seth Baczynski vs. Matt Brown
Shamar Bailey vs. Danny Castillo
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