Dan Henderson

It looks like UFC 75 will be the spot where Rampage Jackson has his first title defense. Dan Henderson will be the challenger, but seeing as Henderson holds the Pride 205lb belt, he's hardly the underdog.

Most old school UFC fans and fans of the Pride Fighting Championships will know who Dan Henderson is. However, the new UFC fans, the ones who started with the Ultimate Fighter TV series, or the recent media hype surrounding the UFC will not.

It might have taken some people by surprise when Dana White announced that Dan Henderson was coming to the UFC...coming to the UFC and getting an immediate title shot against the winner of Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva. Some casual fans might be wondering why Dan Henderson deserves that shot and why Dana would give a relative unknown such a chance. I was not one of those people.

Let me start off by saying that Dan Henderson is one of the toughest, most resillient and hardest hitting fighter in either the middleweight or light heavyweight divisions. Dan is a celebrated wrestler who was on the 1992 and 1996 US Olympic Greco-Rroman wrestling teams. That's no small feat and as Randy Couture and Matt Lindland have shown, Olympic calibre wrestlers who can adapt to MMA usually do pretty well in this sport.

Dan has had a couple of matches already in the UFC. He faced both Allan Goes and Carlos Newton in the same night at UFC 17. This was back in the days when the UFC still did tournament format events. Dan Henderson won the middleweight final against Carlos Newton in that event, May 15, 1998...that makes Dan Henderson active in high level MMA for almost 10 years. In fact if I list the fighters that Dan Henderson has defeated in one MMA organization or another, you might just be surprised. Dan Henderson holds victories over:

Carlos Newton
Gilbert Yvel
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (yes, that's Big Nog)
Renato Sobral
Renzo Gracie
Akira Shoji
Murilo Rua
Murilo Bustamante
Vitor Belfort

and of course most recently a victory over Wanderlei Silva to claim the Pride middleweight (205lb) title.

The list above is not complete, but I thought I'd mention the names which are most recognizable today. So, Dan Henderson holds two belts in Pride. He holds the 185lb belt and the 205lb belt, this is very impressive. That means that Dan isn't one of those 205lb fighters who walks around at 225 and cuts weight for his fights. He is really more of a 185lb fighter, cutting from 205.

The vast majority of Dan Henderson's victories come by way of decision or TKO on strikes. His losses come by way of submission and decision. So, if you're going to beat Dan Henderson you'll need to out work him, or catch him in a submission. In other words, Dan Henderson has a great chin...but test it and you're gonna get tested.

According to Dana White, announced at UFC 71, Dan Henderson will face Rampage Jackson in an upcoming title bout. Dana also mentioned (at a post fight event) that he believed that Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva should be Liddell's next matchup. Both of these fights are great matchups where either fighter could come out on top.

Welcome to the UFC Dan Henderson, we've waited a long time to have you back!

Hopefully by now, all of you have heard that Chuck Liddell was knocked out by Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. I guess my funny feeling was right. The big question is what's next?

The UFC 205 pound division (light heavyweight) is full of talent, with fighters like Liddell, Jackson, Ortiz, Evans, Griffin, Bonner, Jardine, Bisping and let's not forget about Houston Alexander (what a performance against Jardine last weekend).

Rumors are also all around about Shogun entering the UFC ranks (according to the Chute Box web site that is). Also, announced last weekend we have Quinton Jackson facing off against Pride middleweight and welterweight champion Dan Henderson.

Dana White recently stated that he's considering Wanderlei Silva as Chuck Liddell's next opponent. Can you imagine that match? Of course this would set up the logical matchup of the winner of Silva vs Liddell to fight the winner of Rampage vs Henderson.

From there on it it gets really crazy. Do you give Shogun a title match, or the winner of Ortiz vs Evans?

One thing is for sure, the rest of 2007 will be crazy for the UFC light heavyweight division. 2008 might be even better!

As the Chuck Liddell vs Quinton Jackson fight draws nearer, I am getting a very strange feeling. The intellectual in me says that it's just the UFC marketing machine building up the fight, but I can't help but feel that Liddell is genuinely worried about Rampage and Rampage genuinely believes that he's going to "whoop Chuck's ass".

After watching the UFC 71 countdown and UFC All Access, Rampage edition, I can't help but feel this way. Now, the UFC has fooled me before (see Renato Babalu Sobral vs Chuck Liddell), but this time is different.

I watched the first Rampage vs Liddell fight live (or as live as any of the Pride matches being fed from Japan were) and I thought that Chuck would have a rough time, but defeat Rampage. I was suprised that Rampage ran over Chuck like he did, then lost so decisively to Wanderlei Silva. It was this sequence of events that made me start believing that the Pride talent pool was much deeper than the UFC's. Of course events since then have proven that to be incorrect (as a general statement). Anybody who witnessed Ricco Rodriguez vs Antonio Nogueira should know that the UFC (and former UFC) fighter are right on par with their Pride counterparts. Big Nog won that fight, but I thought it was closer than the judges did.

Chuck vs Rampage...we could be seeing a changing of the guard. Of course, I am a glass half full kind of guy, so what can we expect if Rampage does win?

How about Chuck vs Wanderlei? These two have wanted to fight for a long time and with both coming off losses, it may be the perfect time. Or would Dana White give Chuck and instant rematch against Rampage? That would probably depend on Chuck and his camp. If it is a close fight which comes down to a decision, I could see this happening...if it is a decisive Rampage victory then I don't see a reason for it.

With Shogun entering the UFC (see the Chute Box home page for this info), it would open up Shogun vs Rampage 2. Where does Dan Henderson fit into this picture? Ideally I'd like to see Dan fighting at middleweight and taking on Anderson Silva.

Any way, for now this is just a feeling. Feel free to comment on my sixth sense!