Interesting excerpt from Sherdog's piece on Dan Henderson's ongoing negotiations with the UFC:
"Yeah, I'm not real thrilled about that," said Henderson of the plans. "And I like Vitor. He's a good guy and he's been around for a long time, but I just don't understand why he gets to jump to the front of the line, especially when I beat him."
Henderson said he brought up his 2006 unanimous decision victory over Belfort at Pride 32 in Las Vegas at last week's meeting, but he was met with puzzled faces.
"I think it's something that might have slipped their minds, that (that fight) happened," said Henderson. "I'm not exactly sure. You'll have to ask them on that, but to me, that's what it seemed like."
I see both sides of this one. I understand that Vitor is fairly known to old school UFC fans and has a dynamic and popular fighting style, and most importantly hasn't ever faced Anderson Silva, to whom he presents a unique and interesting set of challenges. And Belfort just KTFO'd Matt Lindland, a very comparable fighter to Dan Henderson.
But Lindland ain't Henderson.
I also understand Henderson's point of view since he utterly dominated Belfort when they fought in PRIDE and is coming off an all-time highlight reel KTFO win at the most highly viewed UFC ppv ever. Plus he's coached a season of TUF and headlined the highest rated ever numbered UFC event on SpikeTV. Its hard to argue the UFC fans don't know Dan Henderson.
On the other hand, there's no evidence that he's a huge, or even significant, independent draw and he lost badly to Anderson Silva in their first match -- although he did steal a round from the champ.
There's also this bit which makes me question the official UFC party line that the Rich Franklin vs Dan Henderson rematch that was announced and then scrapped for UFC 103 was killed because of poor response from fans. That might have been partly the case, but it also seems that the UFC didn't want to pay Henderson's asking price for that fight:
In late July, Henderson said he was asked to rematch Rich Franklin at UFC 103 on Sept. 19 in Dallas, as the promotion was in need of a last-minute main bout to go head-to-head with a Mayweather-Marquez boxing card on the same night. Henderson agreed and was presented a new multi-fight contract a few days later, which he then passed on.
"We figured out we were a lot further away than we thought (on the contract)," said Henderson.
Now I don't doubt that Dan Henderson might be asking for a bit more than his market value, but I also think there is a big factor of the UFC brass not seeing him as one of "their" guys. Henderson's accomplishments in MMA over the course of his career are certainly comparable to those of Randy Couture and Matt Hughes and far exceed Rich Franklin's and yet there seems to be no interest in extending him one of the generous "retirement packages" given to those three.
I hope that all parties concerned can come to terms soon because I really want to see Dan Henderson vs Nate Marquardt.
