It's one thing to nab Fedor Emelianenko and retain the rights to Gegard Mousasi, now Strikeforce may have awakened the beast by stealing Dan Henderson from the UFC. Henderson, who has been pining for a title rematch against Anderson Silva, finally gave up on that possibility and according to Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole is going to sign with Strikeforce
The obvious fights for the 205-pound Henderson with Strikeforce/Showtime have to be Mousasi and newly signed Mo Lawal. There may not be a ton of depth for Henderson to run through but at 39-years-old, he's clearly jumping at one final chance to make big money and the opportunity to fight on CBS. Strikeforce debuts its first CBS card on Nov. 7.
UFC president Dana White has often called Strikeforce, "Strikefarce" saying Scott Coker's promotion is too small to swim in the deep waters:
"They should've stayed the way they were," White told Cagewriter back in August. "They want to fight me, we're gonna fight. You know how that goes and you know how that ends. They're a small-time show that's trying to act big. It's a joke. It's a tiny little regional show with nobody in it."
White took a risk with the way he handled Henderson's contract negotiations. Henderson, a free agent, said on repeated occasions that the next fight he wanted was the Silva rematch (lost to Silva back at UFC 82). Silva was promised to the winner of the Henderson-Michael Bisping fight at UFC 100. Henderson scored a devastating knockout of the Brit and thought he had gotten his Silva fight. White changed his mind later in August, stating that Henderson should fight Nate Marquardt with the winner facing Silva. It seems like that was the turning point for Henderson, who has now bailed on the promotion.
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewr ... mma,196516
