UFC Fight Night 38: Dan Henderson demolishes Shogun Rua in the 3rd

by Dr. Octagon, J.D.

Even though he was grandfathered in with what is hopefully the last Testosterone Replacement Therapy exemption in the history of the sport, the 43-year old Dan Henderson (above) is still a force to be reckoned with. On Saturday night at UFC Fight Night 38 in Brazil, Henderson proved it by stopping Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in the 3rd round of a rematch of one of the better mixed martial arts fights in recent memory.

Unfortunately for Rua, Henderson still has a chin of solid granite and old man strength in his right hand. Shogun hurt Dan badly in both the first and second rounds. Referee Herb Dean could have stopped it in the first round there probably wouldn’t be much protest. Dan looked pretty flat in the first two rounds and his cardio still appeared suspect.

Everything changed in the third round, when Henderson landed a vicious right hand off the break, sending Rua to the mat. Henderson then fired about a dozen hammerfists to his fallen opponent’s head to end the fight. Shogun was holding onto his leg, but he was pretty much out and also had a busted nose.  [[MORE]]

Another great fight from these two guys.  Hard to say where Henderson goes from here without TRT. Hopefully he has a fight or two left.

Every fighter who won on the undercard was an underdog. That’s probably the first time that happened.

American C.B. Dollaway made short work of Vitor Belfort’s protege Cezar Ferreira who came forward recklessly throwing hands only to be quickly knocked out with a Dollaway right hand.

Leonardo Santos and Norman Parke fought to a majority draw after an extremely questionable, warning-free deduction of a point for grabbing the shorts cost Parke the fight on the judges’ scorecards.

Fabio Maldonado got the holy shit beat out of him in the first round and was bleeding all over Gian Villante, but wore down Villante over the second and third rounds to win a gutsy decision. This was a really exciting fight. Maldonado is not a complete martial artist, but he continually finds work due to his penchant for stand-up wars.

Michel Prazeres defeated Mairbek Taisumov by scores of 30-25 due to the fact that Taisumov apparently was unaware that you can’t hold onto the fence to prevent a takedown. Referee Yamasaki was so fed up that he almost disqualified Taisumov.

Rony Jason defeated Steven Siler in what might be the worst stoppage of the year. Siler went down from a punch, but had his wits about him and was throwing upkicks as the ref stepped in to stop it. Just a terrible decision.

Karma prevailed over the odds as Thiago Santos, who was around a 7-to-1 dog, beat Ronny Markes. Markes didn’t even try to make weight, coming in five pounds heavy to the weigh-in (and probably entering the cage much heavier than that). A vicious bodykick put Markes down and the fight was over by TKO in early in the first.

Jussier Formiga defeated Scott Jorgensen by rear naked choke. The ending was controversial, as it appears that Jorgensen was put down by an unintentional headbutt to the chin. Jorgensen took to Twitter to complain shortly after the fight.

Kenny Robertson outclassed Thiago Perpetuo. Robertson landed a head kick, ended up on the bottom on the ground, but was able to reverse and take Perpetuo’s back to get the finish by rear naked choke.

Hans Stringer defeated Francimar Barroso by split decision

Godofredo Pepe dropped the Israeli Noad Lahat with a spectacular flying knee in the first round.