Here are some Hendo thoughts
While I’m thinking about this stuff
1. Henderson fighting Anderson Silva is the most excited I’ve ever been for a fight. It was a superfight that was actually a superfight, not one where we were told it was one, like we’re getting with Connor/Eddie. It was the reigning Pride champion against the Reigning UFC champion, we had got Rampage/Hendo earlier but Hendo at 205 was always sort of a gimmick. Him fighting Anderson was really a fight that was going to decide who the best 185er in the world was. Henderson took the first round, and seemed to have the fight in hand, then Anderson did his thing, beat Hendo and solidified himself as the best middleweight in the world, and went on to make his case for being the greatest fighter ever (GSP is the correct answer to that question, but hey).
2. The odd thing about Henderson is, for all his wrestling credentials, he didn’t give a shit about wrestling in MMA. Early on he wrestled a lot more, but later he was primarily interested in throwing his massive right hand and seeing if he could drop guys. There aren’t that many fights, especially in the last decade, where Hendo really wrestles his way to a win.
3. Hendo is the one of the most exciting fighters of all time. Watch his first fight with Wanderlei, the fight with Carols Newton, The Shogun fights, the 2nd Wanderlei fight, the Rampage fight. All great fights that don’t really get their due, aside from the first Wanderlei fight, and the reverence for that fight is waning with the years.
4. You can argue about about where he stands in the pantheon of all time fighters, and greatest American fighters, but there is no one who has a greater “strength of schedule in MMA.