Is Dana White trying to portray Dan Henderson as MMA’s version of Bret Hart?
Published by Zach Arnold on December 11th, 2009 in Current Events

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When news broke earlier this week that Dan Henderson had signed with Strikeforce as a free agent, a lot of people were stunned. How could UFC, given their lack of superstar depth to headline monthly PPVs, let Henderson go to the competition? Even more stunning was Dana White’s public reaction, which was one of joy. Joy? Yes, White wants you to believe that Henderson signing with Strikeforce is a good thing because in his mind the signing will put Scott Coker out of business due to how much money Dan will get paid on the new contract.

If all of this sounds fishy or bizarre to you, you’re not alone. I had to sit down for a while and think about the last time a promoter was actually happy to lose a big-name superstar that he had invested a lot of resources in to promote. It was not easy to come up with a comparison in the MMA world, but I did come up with a comparison from the pro-wrestling world.

Bret Hart.

Everyone who follows WWE knows about “The Montreal Screwjob” in 1997 and what happened there, which led to Bret Hart’s exodus from WWE to WCW after the title was taken away from him. Hart had signed a 20-year contract with WWE and Vince McMahon allowed Hart to leave WWE to go to WCW where Hart would be paid substantially more. Then, of course, there was haggling over Hart losing his world heavyweight title to Shawn Michaels… and the rest is history. Hart ended up in WCW and had a disappointing run due to the company’s booking. He was paid a lot of money but he ended up a miserable man for his stay there.

if you buy into what Dana White is saying today about Dan Henderson signing with Strikeforce, then you might believe that Henderson will end up as miserable as Bret Hart did after leaving WWE. During the negotiations process between UFC and Henderson, Dave Meltzer claimed that the UFC side was telling him that Dan wanted “Tito money,” which would mean a million dollar signing bonus. Whether it was true or not, the idea that this was floated in the media created an impression that Henderson was greedy and selfish and overvalued his position in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

On Wednesday afternoon, Dan Henderson did a 26-minute interview with Sherdog radio where he was in a very good mood. He cracked a joke about how he knows what it feels like to be like Sherdog now with all the UFC politics.

“I feel like I’m like you guys now — BANNED from the UFC! We’ll see how long it lasts with me.”

Of course, Henderson has no ill feelings towards UFC.

“Yeah, and bottom line is I’m a fan of the sport and would love to still go to the UFCs, so we’ll see what happens.”

Henderson’s interview with Sherdog was fascinating. He let the cat out of the bag that Strikeforce would considering doing PPVs in 2010 and also revealed details about his contract with the promotion.

“It’s four fights, uh, it’s about a year and a half from now, yeah.

I mean it’s open to be on either Showtime or CBS or PPV, um, and I know that there probably will be a PPV in one or two of those four fights. I believe the first one is scheduled to be on CBS.”

As for whether or not Henderson will fight both as a Middleweight (185 pounds) or a Light Heavyweight (205 pounds), it’s still up for discussion.

“I believe so (both weight classes) and I believe it’s pretty much you know something that we need to discuss but we’re open to meet, coming in and fighting at either weight class right off the bat. So, you know, it’s something we’re going to talk about after the holidays.

It depends on the dates that they send as well, but you know we’ll see what happens. I’m certain that either weight class I go that there’s definitely somebody there that will challenge me, you know, Jake Shields at 185 is definitely been doing real well and walking through people. Same with Gegard Mousasi at 205, so, there’s definitely some interesting match-ups there.”

One person that Henderson doesn’t see himself fighting is King Mo Lawal, who has made a name for himself in the Sengoku promotion in Japan but also recently signed with Strikeforce. Mo used to train with Henderson.

“Yeah but you know he hasn’t trained in our gym in over a year, but, you know, I don’t believe that Strikeforce brought me in to fight someone that you know nobody really knows in the US. As a fighter, he you know he’s been fighting in Japan since he started and been doing really well, so… you know as soon as he gets known in the US, maybe that’s a possibility, but nobody really knows who he is here. So, yeah, he wouldn’t be a high-profile match-up.”

As for when Henderson will make his Strikeforce debut, expect it to happen in the Spring of 2010.

“Uh, you know probably early March but you know it all depends on the CBS schedule pretty much and when they’ll be having an event on their network and we’ll see because you know I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure the first one is going to be on CBS and then possibly Showtime after that but who knows?”

One person he really wants to fight is Fedor. It’s true.

“Um, I’m definitely interested in it. It’s something that would give me goose bumps thinking about the opportunity and the challenge and that’s a big reason why I fight is because of the challenge of things and you know, different opponents kind of give you different challenges and he would be the ultimate challenge, for sure, you tell me is that something you’d pay for as a fan?”

One of the keys to Strikeforce is that they have multiple platforms to advertise shows on — both on CBS and Showtime, plus PPV if you believe what Henderson has to say. UFC is strictly with Spike TV at the moment. How did Strikeforce’s ties with a network television station influence Dan’s decision to sign with UFC’s main competitor?

“It’s just… you know it seems like it’s a huge opportunity to actually have a key role in bringing new fans to the sport and that’s exciting to me, whether it’s Showtime or CBS, the audience is much bigger than you know I don’t know what the UFC’s PPV numbers have been lately, 3 or 4 or 500,000, so, it’s much bigger than that and that is definitely appealing to me.”

Last month, news broke in MMA media circles that Clinch Gear, a company that had been sponsoring MMA fighters, was banned by the UFC. The UFC has long had petty wars with clothing companies in terms of censoring which ones can and which ones can’t sponsor fighters. Clinch Gear is a company that Dan Henderson has a vested interest in. Naturally, Zuffa banned fighters from Clinch Gear sponsorship and cost them money. Henderson says that Strikeforce has an open policy on sponsorship unlike UFC does.

“It’s pretty much wide open, I can do whatever I want. I mean, obviously I’m with me I’m not the guy that’s going to you know have something that’s going to be offending on my body or on my shorts, you know, it’s wide open you know it’s not limited by the Strikeforce sponsors or you know the UFC really is holding everybody hostage and really making it difficult for the fighters to supplement their income, especially some of those guys are hardly making any money and they really have hurt the sponsorship income quite a bit.”

[The Clinch Gear banning] happened during the negotiation process. Basically we had a deal to, when we were paying, we had a deal until the end of the year to pay a certain amount a month to have the right to sponsor guys which you know I think is you know not all that great for the fighters for them to do that, they’re taking away from like I said some of these fighters that rely on that money but we had a deal in place and they basically canceled that deal and said that, sorry, you haven’t resigned yet, so you guys are banned. And all it did was make me chuckle, it’s you know it wasn’t that big of a deal, we really were trying to trying to support some of these up-and-coming guys who were mostly fighting on the undercard with the exception of say Krzysztof (Soszynski)
or some of my guys, we were mostly sponsoring undercard guys that you know sometimes they’d get on TV if they had good fights but we’re trying to support the up-and-coming guys.”

Strikeforce has integrated Clinch Gear as part of Henderson’s new deal.

“Yeah, I actually can say that it is part of the contract, it will be… as one of the major sponsors in the cage during my fights and you know you can now probably buy Clinch Gear at all the Strikeforce events as well, so, yeah it worked out fairly well for Clinch Gear.

Strikeforce is so easy to deal with on the issues like that, their main concern is putting on good fights and not all the other little things, they don’t try to control all the fighters, every aspect of them, so it’s very refreshing.”

What made UFC’s stance with Henderson so stunning is that he is at the top of his game. He’s at his peak also in terms of mainstream appeal. UFC spent a lot of capital building him up as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter and he was a major star at UFC 100 when he destroyed Michael Bisping. UFC 100 was the company’s biggest PPV and Dan Henderson came out of that event as a mega-star. After UFC 100, UFC didn’t sign him to a new deal. And yet they poured a lot of money into Tito Ortiz, a guy coming off of major back surgery. The end result? Henderson, the hot property, ends up with Strikeforce and UFC is stuck with Ortiz, who looked like he was walking in quicksand against Forrest Griffin at last month’s UFC event. I’m still waiting for the Nevada State Athletic Commission to tell us about the medicals that showed Tito having “a cracked skull” going into the fight.

Now that Henderson has signed with UFC, Dana White wants you to believe that Henderson is going on age 40 and perhaps on the decline. Henderson says Dana is just being Dana.

“I think the fans have grown to know Dana and know how he is and you know I think they respect him for the fact that he has done great things for the sport and taken it to a new level but they also know how he is and he gets a little bit emotional sometimes and speaks without thinking and says stuff that maybe he doesn’t have to say so I’ll leave it at that.”

Does Henderson think he was disrespected by the UFC?

“Well, I said it in a way but you know it wasn’t any one thing. Um… and obviously I’m not fighting for free either and money is a big part of it and I will say that I’m happy with every aspect of my new Strikeforce deal, but you know there was a little bit of you know feeling that maybe um they didn’t respect me as I felt they could have and you know especially when he announces that I’ll be Anderson Silva’s next fight and then gives it to somebody that I beat before, you know, it’s just things like that, little things, it wasn’t even one major thing and… you know, I felt like uh with him with Dana saying you know that he wants to make sure all of his fighters are happy, it’s not good if they’re not happy, and I felt that he could have really uh stuck to that a little bit better.

You know, who knows? I won’t comment on Dana, the fans knows Dana and how he talks and you know all I know is they did call me up, trying to get me fight on Super Bowl Weekend last Friday so they’re really stuck for main events and I think the fans are going to start to grow tired of you know paying for PPVs with fights that you know they’re just mediocre and you know we’ll see, the UFC is really flooding the market with so many events that you know it’s hard to have the same quality of events that they used to have. Now they’re having a lot more fights now and they all can’t be top-notch events, so… you know, I have no idea what’s going on with that, but I’m very happy with my deal.”

Despite White’s comments, Henderson contacted him directly and notified him of signing with Scott Coker.

“Yeah, I called him Monday morning just before the press release went out and I wanted to just tell him personally that I signed with Strikeforce and to thank him for everything that he’s done thing and I’ve said that all along, I appreciate the things he’s done for the sport and for me and I don’t have any hard feelings, I like Dana and you know I really truly have no hard feelings about anything, so I just I did speak with him Monday morning.”

During the negotiations process between UFC and Dan Henderson, Henderson noted several issues of contention. The first issue dealt with UFC wanting total control of him as a fighter – his likenesses, what he could say or not say about UFC, etc.

“I can never say that I was a UFC fighter, I couldn’t use the word UFC on my web site. I’m sure and all it would do was promote the UFC had I done that but you know they like to control their name and my name, I should say, yeah, you know I gave up my rights a little bit not exclusively on certain things and when I signed with Zuffa, but you know only to promote the fights and I never signed licensing deal so you know they … you know, that would have been one aspect that they would have made mandatory had I resigned with them is exclusive, basically on licensing for me.

No, I never signed it and no, I was in the middle of my contract and I didn’t lose so they couldn’t really hold me hostage. These guys that lose when they’re in the middle of the contract basically have you know the contract as far as I’m concerned if it says that it’s for five fights, it should be for five fights on both ends, but if somebody loses the UFC has the option of canceling that and not giving them all their fights and it’s really pretty much a one-sided deal.”

The second issue at hand was Henderson not getting a re-match with Anderson Silva despite the fact that Dana White had publicly said it could happen. Instead of Henderson getting the title re-match he wanted, the title shot went to Vitor Belfort… who beat Rich Franklin last September in Dallas in a 195-pound catch weight fight. It wasn’t even a Middleweight (185 pound) fight and after one win in the UFC, Belfort got the title shot! Was Henderson surprised by what happened in regards to UFC’s booking?

“Um, you know I guess I wasn’t overly surprised at it. But, yeah, I really honestly think that they had no idea at the time that I had fought Vitor not all that long ago so you know, I really like Vitor, he is a good fighter and um, you know it’s a fight that I might like to see but who knows? I’m a little biased on the issue but I don’t know if the fans would rather see me fighting Anderson again or Vitor. Either way, I think you know he did jump the line a little bit. I would have been perfectly fine if Marquardt got that shot and wouldn’t have said a word, you know he’s done enough to deserve that title shot again but and he’s been doing it very impressively lately so you know for them to throw Vitor in there that hasn’t fought in the UFC at 185 was a little bit premature.”

The thrid issue at hand involved the dreaded issue of UFC asking fighters to sign away their likenesses and other charactertistics for video games and merchandising. Jon Fitch publicly got smacked around for initially refusing to sign away his ‘rights’ but ultimate recanted his words and signed them away. Henderson was not playing ball with UFC on signing away his likeness.

“No, that wasn’t really an issue of mine, I never went out and reached out to EA Sports yet, I’m sure that I’ll probably be in their next video game now but you know that’s not something that I was looking for when I signed this deal with Strikeforce, but it was something that would have been really hard for me to give up is exclusive video game rights forever and not have a written deal to get paid to get paid for it. You know with them saying well you know we’ll pay a little bit if it’s making a little money but you know it wasn’t going to be good enough for me especially you know with them um you know it’s a lot of things you can’t trust everything that they say, I’d like it in writing so.”

The former PRIDE 185-pound and 205-pound champion sees his signing with Strikeforce as a good thing for fighters.

“I’m one of the guys that I don’t make rash decisions, I don’t just you know I’m usually you know really relaxed and easy-going and take everything in and then make a decision on things and I’m a little bit slower to make decisions, especially big decisions like this. You know, a lot of the fighters that do know that about me and if I’m signing with Strikeforce that means that obviously it’s something to look at now, you know other than the UFC having a monopoly on things there’s actually another option, so, who knows what’s going to happen and I honestly hope the UFC does bigger and better things and only helps the sport like I said, the bottom line is I’m a fan of the sport, I want the sport to grow, and me signing with Strikeforce I think was ultimately a good move for the sport.”

In much the same way that Bret Hart was viewed as a legend by fans when he went to WCW after departing from WWE, Dan Henderson says he occasionally catches himself thinking about all the big-name opponents he has fought in MMA and where he stands in the history books.

“You know I guess occasionally I do look back and say, shit, I have you know fought this guy and that guy, I guess I fought quite a few guys who are considered legends now, but honestly I fight for the challenge of things and I get up for the challenge and it’s exciting to me to maybe be the underdog again or it’s exciting to me to be really have to change my game plan up for this guy or for that guy and to be really careful when I’m out there fighting against certain guys and I love it and I love my job and you know I obviously have been in the sport and been active in the sport longer than most people and this is one reason I kind of held out for a bit longer on this contract you know just because you know I feel like I’ve definitely helped this sport grow and just because I’m not a loud-mouth shit-talker doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get paid you know the way I should compared to some of these other guys that are loud-mouthed and that I would beat up. So you know it is what it is and I’m actually quite happy with the way things went down and if Dana pushed for it, I really thank him for it.”

Somehow, I expect Dan Henderson’s tenure in Strikeforce to be a lot more rewarding than Bret Hart’s tenure in WCW was.