On Saturday, during UFC 139: Shogun vs. Henderson, two legends in the sport of MMA absolutely went to war. There are so many cliches in the sport these days, starting with the Gladiator-inspired intro to UFC events (which will be phazed out once the UFC's deal with Fox kicks in, so say your goodbyes over the next couple events) to the pre-fight declarations of wanting to go out there and put on a war. It's not exactly "rare" that these fighters deliver on their promises, but there is one thing that's definitely rare.
Rare is what we saw in the main event, when Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua went to war for five rounds. Like any good wars, their were swings in momentum. Henderson clearly had the advantage early on, connecting early and often with that ferocious right hand, while peppering "Shogun" with a left straight. Henderson swarmed several times, and almost finished a couple times in the third round.
But the exertion while trying to finish cost him, and he entered round four extremely tired. He fought gamely, and even could have taken that round to a draw, but Shogun had a bit of a fire lit in him. Round five was total exhaustion in every way. The only things that saved Henderson were an iron chin and the fact that Shogun was too punched out to throw his shots from mount with any authority.
The fight ended in Henderson's favor, as this writer feels it should have, and it's hard to not want to see them fight again. The California-born Henderson surely would bring a war to Shogun and be favored again in a second fight, but at this point in both of their careers, it's hard to imagine them spending more fights on one another. Henderson just vacated the Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship, and has his eyes on the winner of Jon Jones vs. Lyoto Machida, or perhaps on Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen down at middleweight.
Either way, the point is that you need to watch this fight, if you have not yet. Go on - do it. I'll wait.
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WASN'T THAT AWESOME!?