Tag: benson henderson

Henderson vs. Edgar Results: Breaking Down the FightMetric Numbers

It’s safe to say that Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar’s second fight is going to be one of the most debated decisions in a long while. After another close fight between arguably the two best lightweights in the world, we were left to go …

It’s safe to say that Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar’s second fight is going to be one of the most debated decisions in a long while.

After another close fight between arguably the two best lightweights in the world, we were left to go to the judges’ scorecards, a phrase that puts fear into the hearts of fans every time we see a fight that looks like it could have gone either way.

Edgar earned himself a 49-46 score from judge Tony Weeks, but the other two judges weren’t as kind to “The Answer”, and each awarded Henderson a 48-47 result that kept the UFC lightweight title in the hands of the champion.

Can you say controversy?

Many in the MMA world thought that Edgar had done enough to earn the decision, and it turns out that they can use the FightMetric numbers to back their claim.

The MMA scoring system gave the slight edge to Edgar in Rounds 2, 4 and 5, while giving Henderson the first and third.

Still, the fight was so close that a deeper look into the numbers is needed, so we’re going to break this one down round by round with the FightMetric numbers.

All statistics courtesy of FightMetric.

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Benson Henderson’s Next Fight: Head-to-Toe Breakdown vs. Nate Diaz

Last night, Ben Henderson once again defeated former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar by decision. This contest was much closer than their last meeting—a split decision which felt the wrong man won.Nonetheless, Dana White has said no more remat…

Last night, Ben Henderson once again defeated former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar by decision. This contest was much closer than their last meeting—a split decision which felt the wrong man won.

Nonetheless, Dana White has said no more rematches, and Nate Diaz will face Henderson next (per MMA Weekly).

Diaz is coming off possibly one of his most impressive performances—a fight against Jim Miller back in May—and will now have a chance at UFC gold.

The matchup is an exciting one and one that I can’t wait for, so let’s take a look at how the two match up on paper with the Henderson-Diaz head-to-toe breakdown.

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UFC 150: Video Highlights from Henderson vs. Edgar 2 Fight Card

After a lackluster stretch of PPV’s from the UFC in June and July, it was crucial that UFC 150 righted the ship heading into a number of big time fights in the fall. With a high profile lightweight title main event between Benson Henderson and Fr…

After a lackluster stretch of PPV’s from the UFC in June and July, it was crucial that UFC 150 righted the ship heading into a number of big time fights in the fall.

With a high profile lightweight title main event between Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar, as well as a guaranteed barn burner between Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard, UFC 150 had the ingredients to be an awesome fight card.

Luckily for the UFC, it mostly delivered.

Watch highlights from the event in the video above.

The card started off with a highly technical and entertaining scrap between two of the youngest competitors on the UFC roster in Max Holloway and Justin Lawrence.

Lawrence was the more well known of the two due to his stint on the last season of The Ultimate Fighter, but Holloway had looked impressive in his last fight and the betting lines were fairly even heading into this one.

After a closely contested first round, things were pretty much going the same way heading into the final minute of the second.

Then Holloway turned it on, delivering a pair of crippling body shots that sent Lawrence to the mat and finishing him with a handful follow up shots to secure the win.

Next up on the dance card was a middleweight contest featuring former title challenger Yushin Okami against a relative UFC newcomer in Buddy Roberts.

Roberts came in as a late replacement against Okami after “Thunder” had two different opponents pull out of the fight due to injury, and most considered Roberts to be a sacrificial lamb set up to be slaughtered by Okami.

As it turns out, they were pretty much right.

Okami was in desperate need of a win following two straight losses, and he almost finished the fight in the first round by getting on top of Roberts and raining down punches from his back.

When the bell saved the Team Jackson product in the first, “Thunder” decided he would just do it all over again.

Okami took the back in the second round and once again started pouring it on, this time earning the stoppage win.

Another middleweight that badly needed a win at the event was Jake Shields, who had come into the UFC with a ton of hype but had floundered in the welterweight division with just a 2-2 record.

Squaring off against Ed Herman, Shields used his grappling based attack to completely shut down Herman’s offense. While it wasn’t the most entertaining fight on the card, it earned the former Strikeforce champion the victory.

While fans knew that the Shields-Herman bout had a chance to be a snooze fest, they must have been kept awake due to the potential in the next fight between Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard.

Lucky for us, the fight was everything we thought it would be.

Cerrone came out reckless and got dropped early by a big right hand from Guillard, and after “Cowboy” was able to survive “The Young Assassin’s” furious attack, he landed a solid head kick that put Guillard on wobbly legs.

A follow up right hand from Cerrone ended Guillard’s night, but both men earned a nice fight of the night check for their efforts.

If the Cerrone and Guillard bout was the early favorite to take home the bonus check at the end of the night, the lightweight title fight couldn’t have been too far behind.

Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar went to battle for a full 25 minutes, and while both men had some success, it was Henderson who would walk away with a controversial decision win.

The win wasn’t the best performance of Henderson’s career, but he got the job done against one of the toughest fighters on the planet to out-point and saved his title.

Overall, UFC 150 was a solid event from top to bottom and the entertaining headlining fights made the card well worth the $50 price tag.

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Henderson vs. Edgar Results: What Went Wrong for Frankie Edgar at UFC 150

Frankie Edgar has accomplished a great deal in the lightweight division, especially considering that the division looks to be too big for a man his size. For the longest time, Edgar has been fighting and beating the best the lightweight division has to…

Frankie Edgar has accomplished a great deal in the lightweight division, especially considering that the division looks to be too big for a man his size.

For the longest time, Edgar has been fighting and beating the best the lightweight division has to offer, grabbing the title and defending it three times along the way, and all the while he could have been contending as the bigger man in a lower weight class.

Up until his fights with Benson Henderson, Edgar could say he was fighting at lightweight because his size made him the faster, more mobile fighter, and for sure his style of fighting is built upon those very things.

He uses an in-and-out style of striking that takes advantage of his speed and angles, and he’s just at about the right height for the division to make ducking under strikes and getting in deep on those doubles and singles a matter of timing alone.

But Benson Henderson changed all of that for some very simple reasons.

For the first time in a long while, Edgar found himself fighting someone with the same kind of frantic, high-energy style. Henderson was every bit as active as Edgar, both offensively and defensively, and they both covered a great deal of square footage in the cage last night.

Mobility has always been an advantage for Edgar, but Henderson was just as fleet of foot, or at least just as much as he needed to be to utilize one of his greatest weapons: his kicks.

In facing Henderson, the main thing that went wrong for Edgar was as timelessly profound as it was innocent: he lost the clash of styles.

To be brutally honest, I think Edgar could continue to fight with a high degree of success in the lightweight division.

He would have a mobility and style advantage against fighters like Nate Diaz, Donald Cerrone and others, and if Jose Aldo moves up to lightweight, I see Edgar as being one of the only men who could give him a true contest.

But against Henderson, he was fighting a man with a longer reach who was his equal in speed and output.

Edgar has proven through his career that he’s got all the tools to overcome almost any perceived disadvantage, but the one thing he cannot do is make his limbs any longer than they already are.

When two swordsmen of equal skill and speed meet up, it’s usually the man with the longer blade who wins, and that’s what we saw at UFC 150. Yes, Edgar had success getting inside and doing damage, but he just didn’t have enough.

Perhaps he should head south of the lightweight border and start mixing it up with men of his height and reach. Given how well he’s done against men larger than himself, it’s hard to imagine anyone (save perhaps Jose Aldo) defeating him at 145.

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Henderson vs. Edgar Results: What Went Right for Benson Henderson

Ever since Frankie Edgar won the lightweight title against the great BJ Penn at UFC 112, things have not been easy for him. He fought two fights, back to back against BJ Penn, then two more against Gray Maynard, and now he’s lost his second strai…

Ever since Frankie Edgar won the lightweight title against the great BJ Penn at UFC 112, things have not been easy for him.

He fought two fights, back to back against BJ Penn, then two more against Gray Maynard, and now he’s lost his second straight bout against Benson Henderson.

During his time as champion, Edgar faced some daunting challenges (especially two brutal first-round beatings at the hands of Gray Maynard) and managed to hold on to the belt thanks to his grit, determination, heart and in-and-out style of striking mixed with his explosive takedown ability.

Still, even with all of those attributes and skills, Edgar lost his second straight title fight to Benson Henderson, leaving the New Jersey great and his camp to ponder what went wrong as they head for home, sans title strap.

Perhaps the question isn’t what went wrong for Edgar, but what went right for Henderson.

Both fights were close and could have gone either way; it’s not like Edgar got blown out of the water either time. If you compiled both fights and watched them as one 10-round affair, you’d still be left with a hard decision as to who won most of the rounds, not to mention the whole thing.

But at the end of the night, Benson Henderson is still the UFC lightweight champion, and he will next defend his belt against Nate Diaz.

So, what really went right for Henderson that he got the decision yet again?

Well, for starters, he didn’t let Edgar beat him to the punch (or kick) every time. In all the ways that count, Henderson was just as offensive as Edgar: both men lashed out at each other in equal measure with strikes.

But the kicks of Henderson were an ongoing theme from the first round, and they landed more often than not.

Granted, Edgar landed the biggest punch when he put Henderson down in the second round. It was a beautiful shot that landed flush and won the round for Edgar, but he wasn’t able to finish Henderson as he did Maynard in their rubber match.

Henderson survived and frame after frame landed hard kicks to Edgar’s legs and body while scoring occasional knees and punches to the head—one of which knocked out Edgar’s mouthpiece.

For every 10 kicks that Henderson launched, he seemed to land six to seven of them flush—usually on the legs of Edgar, but also to the body—and that kind of consistency is something judges remember.

Of course, fights like this are always hard to judge, given that Edgar seemed to give as good as he got. But time and again, when it looked like Edgar was starting to get the upper hand, Henderson would start chopping away with those kicks.

At the end of the night, it seemed to be a tale of reach; Henderson’s longer legs allowed him to connect first and from greater distance.

As cliché as it sounds, at UFC 150, Henderson just seemed to have a leg up on Edgar, and according to the judges, that was all that Henderson needed.

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Henderson vs. Edgar Results: Champ Continues Dominant Run Despite Controversy

Not everyone agrees with the decision of the Benson Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar bout, but you cannot doubt Henderson’s record.The UFC lightweight champ has been a part of some incredible fights, and his most recent one was no different. The two men wen…

Not everyone agrees with the decision of the Benson Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar bout, but you cannot doubt Henderson’s record.

The UFC lightweight champ has been a part of some incredible fights, and his most recent one was no different. The two men went toe-to-toe for five full rounds, but Henderson was able to come out on top at the end.

Many fans have argued with this decision in what was obviously a very close match. According to Fight Metrics, Edgar landed more strikes, but it was by a very narrow margin. The site lists Edgar having a 70-65 advantage on strikes and 66-62 advantage on significant strikes.

However, UFC aired statistics directly after the match, and it said that Henderson had actually landed more strikes. This is why there are multiple people making the final decision.

Fight Metrics also has a “Total Performance Rating,” in which Henderson edged his rival by a score of 41-40 out of 100.

This sport allows for some controversy in its style, but the two fighters have now faced each other twice and Henderson has been declared the winner each time.

“Smooth” has done his best over the past two years to earn the top spot in the lightweight division, and he should be considered one of the better competitors in the sport.

Since losing his WEC championship to Anthony Pettis, Henderson has won his last five fights, spanning almost two years. His overall record is a very respectable 17-2, including eight wins by submission.

His style rarely looks pretty. He has succeeded by avoiding bad situations and usually just having more endurance than his competitor. However, he has the most important skill in MMA: he knows what it takes to win.

Judges obviously like his performances, as he has earned the nod on multiple close contests. He is solid at landing strikes with both his hands and feet, and he does everything necessary to get the victory.

Henderson has not been dominant in his individual matches, but his current run can be considered dominant. He should start earning the respect of a champion.

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