At this past weekend’s Strikeforce card, Dan Henderson put an exclaimation point on his resume and justified his position as one of the all time greats in MMA history by defeating Fedor Emelianenko by first round TKO. While Hendo furthered his legacy, Fedor is continuing the downward slide started in 2009 and is now having his legacy questioned. I feel like getting into that, as well as discussing what comes next for both men. We’ll start with the winner, Dan Henderson.
Where does Hendo go from here?
Henderson scored one of the biggest wins of his career, probably his biggest since icing Wanderlei Silva in 2006 by defeating the longtime heavyweight great. The victory fulfilled his contract with Strikeforce, leaving him with few options. His deal with the organization was for $800,000 a fight, a fee that the UFC felt was too much. Now that Zuffa owns both organizations, one can expect that Hendo will not be as well compensated in the future. If there’s any justice however, he will be well compensated with a return to the UFC, where there are a few interesting fights left for him.
A rematch with Anderson Silva for the UFC Middleweight Title could make sense, especially because he was one of the top contenders when he left the UFC. In theory, once Silva beats Okami there is no one left for him to fight and Henderson has enough name recognition and is coming in off a nice little win streak that this could be a compelling fight for pay per view. Henderson wouldn’t win of course, as he is nowhere near as dynamic at 185 lbs. as he is at light heavyweight. Weighing roughly 200 lbs., Hendo is a small light heavyweight, but it seems like that is where he has his most success.
Right now, the UFC’s light heavyweight picture is a bit muddled and Henderson could make for some interesting fights. I think the best bet would be to put him up against either A) Lyoto Machida or B) the winner of Shogun Rua and Forrest Griffin, with the winner getting a title shot after the winner of Rashad Evans-Tito Ortiz faces the winner of Jon Jones-Rampage Jackson. If the plan is to put Lyoto Machida in the title picture sooner rather than later and/or get him another fight before the end of the year, that would be the way to go. If the plan is to feed Jones another challenger (because he’s going to beat Rampage and probably beat Rashad/Tito), then let him fight Shogun or Griffin. That fight would be very exciting and could put forth a credible challenger for the title. Either route they go with would be interesting.
A third option is to retire. Dan’s 40 years old and his value as a fighter isn’t going to get any higher. Retiring after beating Fedor gives him an exciting victory over a legend to go out on and allows him to leave on his own terms and not because he is a human punching bag. Besides, the odds of him winning a title in the UFC are not good. He could retire after a winning streak that ran counter to the “Decision Dan” nickname since he won all three fights by knockout. I repeat, things will never be this good for Dan Henderson again and by retiring now, he could keep a strong legacy and not have his name be used as a feeder for the next generation.
Where does Fedor go from here?
Has anyone fallen so far as Fedor Emelianenko in the past two years? He has gone from being considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time and possibly the greatest fighter of all-time, winner of 31 straight fights to three straight losses ended by a decisive finish. It has called into question whether or not he is overrated and if so, for how long.
The answer to that is, yes, he has been overrated over the past three years. The last opponent of any real value he beat was Andrei Arlovski. Since then, he beat the since proven to be little more than a prospect Brett Rogers, and lost three in a row. Fedor hasn’t been the best heavyweight in the world since 2007. His last few fights have shown him to be far from the man that beat prime Nogueira twice and defeated prime Cro Cop. PRIDE era Fedor was most likely the best heavyweight in the world, and due to his amazing streak of wins was likely the pound for pound best at that time and if not, was in the top three.
Since 2007, he ceded that territory to Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre, two champions that have both gone on lengthy winning streaks against competition far superior to that which Fedor faced at the tail end of his run at the top. Silva’s run has been particularly impressive and the case can and should be made that he is the best of the last half of the decade and as of right now, the greatest fighter of all-time. Middleweight requires a far more diverse set of skills than heavyweight, where one really only needs to excel in one form of combat to succeed. This is part of the reason why Fedor and his camp balked at a move to light heavyweight. If he was to move down in weight, he would still be slower and less skilled overall than someone coming up like Jon Jones or a top contender like Lyoto Machida. I don’t mean to dump on the guy or belittle his accomplishments. He is a legend in the sport and for a long period of time had the aura of invincibility. Especially when one considers Randy Couture’s run came as a light heavyweight and not solely as a heavyweight,, Fedor still should be thought of right now as the greatest heavyweight of all-time.
That being said, he should retire. His training isn’t as intense as needed for the new era of MMA and his skill set hasn’t evolved enough to continue. He makes simple mistakes (ex. the Werdum fight) that he wouldn’t have made five years ago. In his peak, he could beat behemoths like Bob Sapp or withstand strikes from Mirko Cro Cop, but the other night Dan Henderson was able to sweep and blast him and Hendo is considerably smaller than Fedor. He was manhandled by Bigfoot Silva when in years past, he would have worked for a submission or been able to mount some kind of defense and offense. Unlike Randy Couture and Dan Henderson, Fedor hasn’t made the necessary adjustments as he has gotten older in order to continue his career and it doesn’t particularly seem like that bothers him. That’s why he should retire. He isn’t completely finished like Cro Cop or Nogueira, but he can’t compete with the top 10 in the division anymore and for someone who used to be so dominant, that should mean that its time to hang ‘em up. He can retire knowing that he put on an exciting back and forth fight, even if it ended in defeat, and that’s something a lot of his peers from PRIDE cannot say.
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