Henderson would fight Bisping again 'for the right money'
It's taken less than two weeks for Dan Henderson to talk about fighting again.
The recently retired MMA legend wrote an impassioned post for champions.co on Thursday in which he expressed his frustration over how his last fight ended and what it would take to change his retirement plans following that loss. The 46-year-old Henderson battled middleweight champion Michael Bisping for five rounds at UFC 204, knocking Bisping down in both the first and second frame.
Bisping survived those scares and landed enough strikes to take a close unanimous decision win. The outcome was a redemptive one for Bisping, who was knocked out by Henderson at UFC 100 seven years ago.
Having had a chance to review their rematch, Henderson is now mulling over his decision to hang up the gloves.
"If this fight had happened last year, and I hadn't decided to make it my retirement fight, the fans would have demanded a trilogy," wrote Henderson. "Hell, I'm pretty pissed off right now, and for the right money, I'm pretty sure I could be talked into the rubber match, not that I think he would accept another invitation to get beat up again. At the same time, I'm content with what I've done and in knowing, if only in my heart, that I won that fight.
"The theme of this event was 'vengeance,' but Michael Bisping didn't get that. If anything, he got the exact opposite. He got wrecked, and dropped twice by the same punch he so desperately wanted to eradicate. I said it once, and I'll say it again - you can't change history."
Once the fight was over, it was evident that Bisping's face was by far the worse for wear, but visible damage is not part of the scoring criteria for MMA judges. The raw numbers were much more favorable for Bisping as he connected with 119 significant strikes, 38 more than Henderson.
For an old-school fighter like Henderson, statistics don't mean much especially when he saw his opponent dropped twice. Though it's unlikely that Henderson ever fights again, he'd like to see the scoring system tweaked in the future.
"He just wasn't doing anything to me," wrote Henderson. "He was throwing punches that weren't really landing or were just barely touching me. Most of the punches I was throwing were meant to hurt him, and obviously, they did.
"There was a big difference in our significant strikes. I think the definition of that needs to be spelled out better, because he didn't throw that many significant strikes. He didn’t hurt me once."