We’ll have an interview with Martin Kampmann up tomorrow and his fight with Rick Story should be a barnburner as he guarantees he’s not leaving it up to the judges following back-to-back questionable decision losses.
Since there really aren’t any bad fights on the card per se, which (if any), fights aren’t you looking forward to Saturday night?
SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe someone should tell Dan Henderson that he’s about to headline one of the better UFC pay-per-views of 2011.
While they’re at it, maybe they should also tell him that the match-up is kind of a big deal to the fans who always wanted to see Henderson and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua mix it up back when they were both in Japan’s Pride organization, and if he wins there just might be a title shot in it for him.
Not that I expect it would make much of a difference to him, nor would it generate any outward displays of enthusiasm, but it might be nice just to know that he knows it.
If you weren’t already used to his sleepy pre-fight demeanor, you might have been forgiven for mistaking his laconic performance at the UFC 139 press conference on Thursday afternoon for disinterest.
Again though, that’s only if you didn’t know the guy. It’s only if you weren’t familiar enough with his sense of humor to recognize that, when asked about the differences between training for a three-round fight and a five-round fight, he was just trying to have a little fun by replying, “The difference is two rounds.”
You’d also have to know him well enough to know that, when he deflected talk about getting back into a title shot, suggesting that the winner of his fight with Rua might not be deserving of a crack at the champ if it ends up being “a boring fight and not a whole lot happens,” he wasn’t trying to be difficult so much as honest.
After all, this is the same man who, at Wednesday’s open workouts, insisted that he’d never actually been all that passionate about pursuing a rematch with middleweight champ Anderson Silva, and that, sure, he wouldn’t mind winning a UFC title, since that was “definitely on the goal list.”
Maybe that’s just what happens when you’re a 41-year-old fighter with more than 14 years in the sport, and you’ve won big fights in every major organization. Maybe you show up to press conferences in a little conference room on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, and you still can’t get too terribly worked up about the man you’re about to fight in a cage just two days from now.
Fortunately for us, UFC bantamweight Urijah Faber was there to tell us a story about Hendo — a story that told us more about Hendo than Hendo would likely ever tell us about himself.
As Faber told it, he was a former wrestler in his first couple weeks of MMA training, and he ended up on the mat with Henderson during a training session in a Sacramento gym.
“I was just going in there, going for the kill, and of course I went against a guy who’s another great wrestler and bigger and more experienced and everything and he was just killing me and he was like, ‘Man, don’t you know any jiu-jitsu?'”
The answer, Faber said, was “not really,” which only earned him a shaming from Henderson, who pointed out that another smaller fighter, Javier Vazquez, was able to hang with him thanks to his jiu-jitsu skills. The message was clear enough to Faber, who said he also started asking around about Henderson’s training regimen because “I was trying to get a feel for how the best guys did things.”
“I was asking his training partner how much he runs, and he said, ‘Dan hasn’t ran in 13 years,'” Faber said, before recounting a story about the year Henderson spent “partying” instead of training, only to then enter and win a national wrestling tournament.
“This guy’s a unique cat,” said Faber. “He’s like a pirate or something.”
Here’s where you naturally pan to Henderson himself, looking for a reaction, briefly forgetting who you’re dealing with.
“I guess I got no comment about that,” he replied.
Of course not. Why would he? When you’ve got exploits like Henderson’s, both in the cage and out, you don’t have to talk about them. You can let others do it for you.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Watch below as Mauricio “Shogun” Rua talks about his UFC 139 fight against Dan Henderson, his win over Forrest Griffin at UFC 134, whether he thinks a win over Henderson will get him a title shot, what he expects from the fight, and fighting in basements as a youngster.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Watch below as Mauricio “Shogun” Rua talks about his UFC 139 fight against Dan Henderson, his win over Forrest Griffin at UFC 134, whether he thinks a win over Henderson will get him a title shot, what he expects from the fight, and fighting in basements as a youngster.
Filed under: UFCFor the first time in a little over two years, Dan Henderson is a UFC fighter again. Judging by his gentle ribbing of UFC president Dana White during Tuesday’s UFC 139 press conference in San Jose, not too much has changed about his rel…
For the first time in a little over two years, Dan Henderson is a UFC fighter again. Judging by his gentle ribbing of UFC president Dana White during Tuesday’s UFC 139 press conference in San Jose, not too much has changed about his relationship with his boss.
“I guess it’s a little bit ironic that every time I win a title somewhere Dana has to buy the company to get me back,” Henderson joked before adding that he was glad to be back since “the best match-ups for me are here in the UFC.”
As for White, who’s traded verbal barbs with Henderson before, during, and after contentious contract negotiations in the past, he seems eager to let bygones be bygones. Especially now that Henderson is back in the fold and headlining UFC 139 against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
“Dan and I get along just fine,” said White. “We butt heads here and there, but we get along great. I respect him as a fighter. He’s a durable, tough guy who’s been out there beating the best in the world. I can’t hate him for knocking Fedor [Emelianenko] out either, so…I’m happy to have him back.”
Henderson gives up his Strikeforce light heavyweight title to return to the UFC for the first time since his knockout victory over Michael Bisping at UFC 100. After beating “Feijao” Cavalcante for the Strikeforce belt and then knocking out Emelianenko in a non-title affair, Henderson said, he “wasn’t excited about anybody coming up that I might be fighting other than the guys that were going to be in the UFC.”
One fight he is excited about, it seems, is a rematch with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
“There’s only one fight that I’d probably fight at 185 [pounds] and he won’t fight right now, I guess,” Henderson said in reference to Silva, adding that the champion “said he’s hurt.”
“Everybody could speculate, and I’d be one of those same people, but that’s the fight that we originally talked about,” Henderson said. “But evidently he hurt himself.”
Sensing perhaps that Henderson wasn’t totally sold on the injury story, White stepped in to back up his champion, insisting that Silva was suffering from a shoulder injury after his win over Yushin Okami at UFC 134 and had been told by his doctor to take eight weeks off.
“Listen, Anderson Silva’s fought everybody,” White said. “It’s not like he’s ducking fights. He’s never ducked a fight and when he’s ready, and if this thing goes right, and if Dan wants to cut that weight, then we can talk about Anderson Silva.”
Of course, to even make it a conversation worth having the 41-year-old Henderson first has to get past Rua on November 19. Even if he does, and if he continues to lobby for a rematch with Silva, the UFC might rightfully wonder whether Henderson will be sufficiently interested in sticking around at middleweight should he win the title.
After all, there’s not much benefit to giving a guy at shot at the 185-pound strap if, by his own admission, he’s “not fond of cutting weight anymore.” At least that’s something he won’t have to worry about for the next couple of months. The fight with Rua may not require him to drop too many pounds, but it will take just about everything he’s got if he wants to come out on top.
Filed under: UFC, NewsUFC 139 was once scheduled to host the UFC heavyweight championship, but after that bout was moved up a week to the UFC on FOX headliner, the search began for a replacement fight.
Now, it’s set. Dan Henderson has re-signed with t…
UFC 139 was once scheduled to host the UFC heavyweight championship, but after that bout was moved up a week to the UFC on FOX headliner, the search began for a replacement fight.
Now, it’s set. Dan Henderson has re-signed with the promotion and will take on Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at the event to be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.
UFC president Dana White confirmed both Henderson’s signing and the fight’s booking to 5thRound.com after Tuesday’s UFC on FOX press conference in Hollywood, California.
The bout was originally reported by MMA Weekly on Monday, but at the time, multiple sources told MMA Fighting that the deal was not yet done, though it was the intended direction of the promotion.
Signing with Strikeforce, Henderson (28-8) becomes the third organizational champion since the Zuffa-Strikeforce merger to vacate his belt, following welterweight Nick Diaz and heavyweight Alistair Overeem.
Henderson went 3-1 during his Strikeforce run, losing his debut bout to Jake Shields in a decision before scoring consecutive knockout wins over Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Rafael Cavalcante and Fedor Emelianenko.
The 41-year-old will be in his third go-round with the UFC. He won two matches in the organization in 1997, then spent several years fighting overseas in Japanese organizations before returning to the UFC in 2007, going 3-2 along the way.
Rua (20-5) is fresh off an August 27 first-round knockout win over Forrest Griffin at UFC Rio. It was Rua’s first fight back since losing the light-heavyweight championship to Jon Jones.
UFC 139 also features former Strikeforce star Cung Le making his UFC debut against Vitor Belfort, and Brian Bowles facing Urijah Faber in a key bantamweight bout.
It looks like former UFC light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua will be getting his wish. Multiple reports confirm that current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson and “Shogun” have verbally agreed to face one another, likely as the main event of UFC 139.
The originally penned headliner for this event, a heavyweight title match between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos, was moved to the UFC’s debut on Fox, which takes place Nov 12th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. I think it’s safe to say that this will be a fair replacement; Rua’s last 5 wins have come by knockout, whereas “Hendo’s” last 4 wins have ended in similarly decisive fashion, the most recent being a first round knock out of former Pride heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko.
It looks like former UFC light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua will be getting his wish. Multiple reports confirm that current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson and “Shogun” have verbally agreed to face one another, likely as the main event of UFC 139.
The originally penned headliner for this event, a heavyweight title match between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos, was moved to the UFC’s debut on Fox, which takes place Nov 12th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. I think it’s safe to say that this will be a fair replacement; Rua’s last 5 wins have come by knockout, whereas “Hendo’s” last 4 wins have ended in similarly decisive fashion, the most recent being a first round knock out of former Pride heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko.
Henderson’s last octagon appearance was highlighted by perhaps his most brutal finish to date over fellow TUF 9 coach Michael Bisping at UFC 100. Mauricio Rua on the other hand, is coming off a quick dispatching of Forrest Griffin in their rematch at UFC 134. A fight that has nothing but title implications written all over it, don’t expect this one to go to the judges, especially considering “Shogun’s” somewhat rocky history with them.
Speaking of title implications, UFC 139 will also feature former UFC light heavyweight champ and middleweight contender Vitor Belfort, taking on former Strikeforce middleweight kingpin Cung Le, as well as a bantamweight bout between former WEC featherweight champ Urijah Faber and former WEC bantamweight champ Brian Bowles. That’s a lotta (former) gold for one event, son. UFC 139 goes down November 19 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.
SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe someone should tell 
For the first time in a little over two years, 
UFC 139 was once scheduled to host the 