“Yeah, I’m not real thrilled about that,” said Henderson of the plans. “And I like Vitor (Belfort). 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.”
“I think it’s something that might have slipped their minds, that (that fight) happened. I’m not exactly sure. You’ll have to ask them on that, but to me, that’s what it seemed like.”
"I’m O.K. with fighting (Marquardt); we just have to come up with a deal. Obviously I feel my value has gone up enough to warrant what I’ve asked for. I don’t think I’m being greedy by any means.”
“There’s a lot of numbers being thrown around out there and I feel I should be paid what I ask for. They feel like, I guess, I’m not worth that though.”
— QUOTES Courtesy Loretta Hunt's story on Sherdog.com.
Dan Hendo Henderson—in his most recent fight, at UFC 100, defeated British cage fighter and The Ultimate Fighter reality show product Michael "The Count" Bisping with arguably one of the most brutal one-punch knockouts ever witnessed in the UFC.
The right hook hybrid punch over the top was not unlike watching a venomous pit viper in the wild—a beautiful thing to observe from a distance but extremely deadly if bitten by it.
It was a brilliant display of power from Henderson, and now the 39-year-old part Walla Walla Native American, former Pride FC middleweight and welterweight champion, and two-time United States Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling is undoubtedly "crashing the gate," ready to go at it once again.
The problem that exists now is that Hendo's contract with his promotional company, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has expired.
So a new five-fight deal is the works; however, as is the case most times involving contracts of this sort, the fighter wants more than the promoter is willing to pay.
The figures that are being thrown around are unknown to this writer, and far be it from me to speculate what a fighter of Hendo's caliber is worth over the next five fights, which, by the way, could carry him into his 42nd year of life on this planet.
Not a great age to be chasing after a 185-pound championship title that is currently under lock and key, safely guarded by a deadly fighting spider named Anderson Silva, who has knocked Hendo senseless the first time he tried to grab it.
Another factor in this mix is Vitor Belfort.
Belfort, nicknamed "The Phenom", has recently been acquired by the UFC, and even though he has seemingly been around MMA forever, he is still only 32 and is currently enjoying a five-fight win streak, three by knockout, his last against former UFC middleweight champion Rich "Ace" Franklin.
The win over Franklin—possibly due to both being previously caught in the Spider's web and beaten by Silva in the past—catapulted Belfort directly over the heads of both top contenders Marquardt and Henderson, who are left with fighting each other as the only option available.
It has been said that "all is fair in love and war," but something here smells of a familiar promotional stench—the stench of PPV money, which sadly trumps any form of common sense when referring to matchmakers in the fight game.
The truth, however, somehow always manages to eventually rise to the top, and in this case Hendo seems to have an unknown bargaining tool in the form of a win that came during his days fighting for the now-defunct Pride Fighting Championships.
At Pride 32: The Real Deal on Oct. 21, 2006, Belfort lost a unanimous decision to Henderson, then Pride's welterweight champion.
Not only that, but, after the fight, Belfort tested positive for an illegal substance, 4-hydroxytestosterone.
I'm not claiming there is any conspiracy here; however, there are those out there who claim that Franklin, in his aforementioned match with Belfort, seemed to take one of those prearranged dives that boxers made famous during the '40s.
Now I'm not saying that this writer subscribes to this fodder, but I do love quotes, and one of my favorites is "you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time."
To Hendo, from one native to another, I will say in closing that I truly hope this isn't another case of the "white man" attempting to give the natives a raw deal.
I'm sure it isn't.
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