Bisping vs. Henderson: The Perfect Ending We Didn’t Know We Wanted

There you go, England. Are you happy now? UFC came back and brought you a live fight card.

I mean, yeah, you had to stay up until 5 AM to watch it, but you usually do that anyway, right?

Hey, at least it wasn’t some dinky Fight Night card. It was a Payperview, one with a title fight and everything!

(And I mean a real title fight — none of that “interim” nonsense)

And it wasn’t just any title fight. It was a title fight featuring your favorite fighter, the pride of the Queen herself (I’m assuming), Michael Bisping, making the first defense of the UFC Middleweight Championship he won when he slept Luke Rockhold after Luke showed no interest in the encounter, even when Bisping was standing across the cage from him, punching him in the face.

First rule of UFC Fight Club: if you’re in a fight with someone, it helps to fight back.

For as improbable as that win was, it was certainly a feel good moment for a man who’s given so much to the sport and to the UFC and, at this late stage of his career and in the most random, most last minute of circumstances, got to taste the fruit of his labor in a major way.

And then he went right back to pissing everybody off by brushing off every top contender in the middleweight division, of which there are a few, to offer a title fight to a middle-aged man who was planning to retire after his previous fight, a knockout of Hector Lombard that occurred on the same main card as Bisping’s title win.

Was a rematch between Bisping and Dan Henderson — former Olympian, multiple time MMA champion, and the man who made it okay to joke about weapons of mass destruction in a combat sports context — something that fans had been clamoring for prior to last Saturday’s clash at UFC 204?

Not really. Since their first fight at UFC 100, which resulted in one of the most memorable knockouts in the sport’s history, both men had been on wildly different paths, with Henderson doing what he does, fighting top fighters wherever they may be hiding, and Bisping doing mostly nothing until this year.

Seriously, no disrespect to the champ, but he was fighting CB Dollaway and Thales Leites last year. That’s a bit of a jump going from those guys one year to Anderson Silva and winning the title the next. Improbable doesn’t even begin to describe it, but I digress (as usual…).

Ever since Bisping got that taste of Hendo’s right hand, he’d been wanting a second chance to correct his mistakes and prove it was just a lucky punch. And, for the longest time, Henderson showed no interest because, for the longest time, there was no reason to fight Bisping again. Yeah, Mikey’s been ranked all these years but he was barely a gatekeeper. Getting another win over him was not going to get Dan any closer to a title shot.

I imagine the only way Henderson, who’s fought for the last decade like each fight could be his last, would entertain the thought of indulging Bisping in his desire to get punched in the face again would be if something drastic happened, like “The Count” winning the middleweight title and agreeing to put it on the line for one…more…match…

Yeah, so funny thing about that…

Y’know, the leadup to the rematch actually told a pretty good story, which is one of the reasons why fans weren’t too upset that Bisping wanted to defend his newly-won championship against the #13 ranked contender, especially when certain other champions were also trying to call their own shots and angle for money fights when they haven’t done anything to deserve that luxury.

That’s right, Tyron Woodley. The fans were booing you at the UFC 205 press conference. Get used to it.

We were also cool with it because Dan Henderson is a legend, nay, an American goddamn hero, and we wouldn’t have minded seeing him try to put Bisping’s lights out again. He could have gone out the way Peyton Manning did earlier this year: as a champion.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the ending we got, but the rematch still ended up being as perfect as one could have expected given the circumstances.

Bisping moved a lot better in this fight than in the first one, doing a better job of not circling into Dan’s right hand, but he still spent plenty of time standing right in front of Hendo, giving him ample opportunity to find time to uncock his loaded fist, which he did near the end of the first round.

It was a moment that very much resembled the ending to the first fight: Henderson winding up and cracking Bisping in the eye, Bisping tumbling backward, and Henderson falling on Bisping with violent forearms, looking like a man possessed (or a man trying to get done and leave so he can beat the traffic) to end the fight and add the last piece that’s missing in his trophy case.

This time, though, it was not meant to be, as Bisping weathered the storm and got back to his feet. He even survived a second, albeit more minor, onslaught in the second round. From there, he used his movement to skirt around the exhausted American and outstrike him to take a convincing unanimous decision victory.

It took him 7 years to get the revenge he had been seeking but, in a year where Conor McGregor got to avenge his loss to Nate Diaz immediately, Bisping finally got to close that dark chapter of his life, and he did so in as dignified a manner as one could muster in the circus sideshow this promotion has turned itself into over the last few years.

Both men gained quite a lot with this victory, as while Bisping can finally sleep at night again, even though the legitimacy of his title reign is still in question, Henderson can ride off into the sunset knowing that he fought with everything he had all the way until the end. The man never gave up, he never stopped trying to win, and, even at age 46, he could still tangle with the best of them.

Thank you, Dan Henderson. Thank you for everything.

As for Bisping, now that’s he gotten that out of his system, how about a real title challenge now, hmmm?

It’s all right, Mike. You’re the champ. I can’t see anyone at 185 being able to touch you right now.

Well, except for Chris Weidman. And Yoel Romero. And Luke Rockhold if he remembers to fight this time. Jacare Souza could give you a pretty good run for your money. And Gegard Mousasi looked pretty good on Saturday. Oh, and also…

I hope you had your fun, Mike. Get back to work.

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.