Dan Henderson vs Lyoto Machida Breakdown

Dan Henderson

Hendo is on a major win streak, defeating the likes of Fedor and Shogun.  He is also coming off of a 15 month layoff and an injury.  Being 42 years old has to catch up with him eventually as well (though he is loaded up on TRT).  Henderson has a great chin, unreal punching power and some pretty decent takedowns and scrambling ability.  He has been dropped in every fight he has had for the last couple of years but always manages to survive.  He has also benefited from people being willing to brawl with him.

Lyoto Machida

A true master of Karate.  Technical, fast, elusive.  Machida has some big wins in his career but he also has several losses lately.  He generally gets himself into trouble when he abandons his main style and gets overaggressive (Shogun II, Jones).  One of his few flaws is that he doesn’t always keep his back hand up, but from the Ryan Bader fight, it looks like he has been working on correcting that.  I wouldn’t say his chin is bad but he has shown he can be dropped if landed on solidly by someone with decent power.

The Fight

There are really only two ways I can see this going.  Either Machida is going to pick Henderon apart with his technical striking or Henderson will land a big bomb and put Machida out.  I think the first option is much more likely to happen.  Machida has a much more diverse game, he is hard to hit and he can take Henderson down if he wants too.  The longer the fight goes on the more chance Machida has to put Henderson away.  If it was a five round fight I think Machida would finish Henderson, but being only three rounds favors Dan more.

Dan Henderson has never been finished by strikes before, but neither had Rich Franklin, Rashad Evans, Thiago Silva or Ryan Bader; that didn’t stop Machida from doing it.  When Fedor stopped brawling and looked for a technical combo for the first time against Hendo, he dropped him right away.  I think Machida can do the same, and even put Hendo away early, if he is aggressive enough.  This should be Machida’s fight to lose, but so was the Rampage fight (which I thought Machida won).

If Machida wants to play it safe while also staying ahead on the judges score cards, he might want to trip Hendo to the mat and wear him out during the first round, then look for the finish in the second or third when Hendo gets more tired.  He can keep it on the feet and somply move around and dodge Dan’s attacks, but it could result in another Rampage type decision if the judges don’t think he did enough.

The Result

As long as Machida comes out smart, moves around like he normally does, protects his chin, mixes up his game and doesn’t brawl, I think he wins this.  I think it’s even possible he puts a frustrated Hendo away but it’s less likely than if it was a five round fight.  Don’t count Henderson completely out though, with the power of TRT backing him up and his H-bomb, he can win at anytime.  It’s hard to say what Henderson is going to look like after such a long layoff though.  I think it’s 70/30 Machida.