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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
40-year-old Dan Henderson has captured gold once again, knocking out Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante in the third round of their headlining fight in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday night to become Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion.
Henderson looked to land his overhand right throughout the first two rounds of the fight, and came near connecting with it on numerous occasions. But "Feijao" was game, and made things very interesting, especially in the first round.
After getting tagged by a punch from Henderson, "Feijao" dropped his challenger with a right of his own that sent Henderson to the ground, but Henderson was able to immediately recover and score a takedown.
The fight had several instances of both fighters stalling on the cage and on the ground, as each were more than willing to wait out a separation from referee Dan Miragliotta, which came on several occasions.
But finally, in the third, Henderson connected on the overhand right as Feijao attempted to get out of the way. The grazing punch sent him face first to the ground, and Henderson immediately pounced and landed a series of vicious punches to the side of Feijao's head that knocked him out.
Henderson is once again a Champion for the first time since losing consecutive title unification bouts upon re-entering the UFC in 2007.
Penick's Analysis: Henderson fought a great fight, and continues to look like a top flight fighter at light heavyweight. His best performances over the last several years have been at 205 lbs., and he again looked very good on Saturday night. His right hand is as dangerous a weapon as any fighter has in their arsenal, and though he's had a tendency to over-rely on that at times, it worked in his favor in Columbus and he connected to end the fight. It was a nice cap-off to an entertaining debut for Strikeforce in Columbus.
[Dan Henderson art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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