Dan Henderson comes into his fight with Jon Jones at UFC 151 on September 1st as an underdog, but he’s determined to add another belt to his already impressive trophy cabinet.
“Two prides belt and the Strikeforce light-heavyweight belt. I guess there’s one more to get on my list and that’s the UFC belt,” Henderson says in his pre-fight interview with UFC.com.
To do so he’ll have to defeat a young champion who so far in his career has looked unstoppable, and Henderson is rightly wary about his varied arsenal of strikes.
“I feel like the things I need to watch out for most is probably his elbows and his knees and a little bit of his kicks,” he says, though he also adds, “I’m not so concerned about his hands.”
Henderson is renowned for having one of the best chins in the sport, and so he should be able to absorb a fair amount of damage in the cage, and that may buy him time to find a way to test a potential chink in jones armor.
“Once I’m inside and tight with him I plan on definitely putting him on his back and seeing how he fights from there. We haven’t really seen him on his back at all.”
It’s a sound enough strategy, though others have said similar things in the past and then been unable to find an opportunity to do so when they actually get in the cage with the young phenom.
Henderson certainly has the wrestling credentials to do so, but we’ll have to wait another two weeks before we can find out if he can really be the man to knock Jones off his perch.
Watch Henderson’s full interview below.
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