Dan Henderson announced at the weekend that his next fight will come at middleweight against Vitor Belfort in the main event of UFC Fight Night 78 in Sao Paulo, Brazil on November 7th.
Widely considered to be legends of the sport, Henderson and Belfort have met two times before over the course of their long mixed martial arts careers, with ‘Hendo’ having won their first encounter at PRIDE 32 in 2006 by unanimous decision, while Belfort got his revenge in the UFC in 2013 with a first round head kick knockout victory.
Since then both men have experienced mixed fortunes in their careers. Henderson picked up a TKO victory over Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua next time out, but then suffered back-to-back stoppage losses against Daniel Cormier and Gegard Mousasi, though he’s since rebounded with a KO win against Tim Boetsch back in June.
Belfort meanwhile has only fought once since then after numerous delays including requiring more time to adjust after TRT was banned and injury issues kept him out of action until May of this year when he suffered a first round TKO loss to current champion Chris Weidman, bringing an end to a three-fight winning streak.
At this moment in time the 44 year-old Henderson is placed at No.12 in the middleweight rankings, while the 38 year-old Belfort holds down the No.4 spot.
