UFC Fight Night 77: “Belfort vs. Henderson 3” Fight Picks & Predictions

Their first UFC fight was also in Brazil two years ago, and also ended when Belfort knocked out Henderson by head kick in the first round.

Nicknames aside, Oliveira has become a fun addition to the lightweight division with his punishing knockouts and he landed another on Saturday night when he put Piotr Hallman to sleep with a vicious punch in the third round.

It was a little boring in the first minute and half as the Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort felt each other out. He also fought his first few fights in the UFC, winning the middleweight tournament title at UFC 17 in 1998.

The win was Belfort’s first since he came off controversial testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT) early past year. I fought under the commission’s approval, with UFC’s approval.

Of course, that was the younger version of Henderson, as the heavy-hitter has been a shell of his former self the last couple of years. In fact, “Dangerous Dan” has now lost six of his last eight bouts inside the Octagon.

Tavares, whose guillotine choke tabled Clay Guida at just 39 seconds into their fight, set his own record for fastest submission in UFC featherweight division history.

But rather than taking the time to even be grateful for those of us who stayed up well past the hours of reasonability to see Belfort do exactly what we all knew he was going to do to Hendo, you instead opted to try and sell us on what’s going down *next* week. That win was actually the last time Belfort had his hand raised before Saturday. “You know the meaning? As of right now, all I’m thinking about in Anthony Birchak”. I want to thank God for giving me the strength and the ability to be who I am.

The latest gaff came courtesy of Keith Peterson, who by all regards isn’t a bad referee, but he made a really poor call in the fight between Gleison Tibau and Abel Trujillo.

With Weidman vs. Rockhold and Souza vs. Romero scheduled on December 12, Belfort would seem to make sense against one of the losers of those two fights. “I just ducked into a nice head kick”. But Henderson, who it’s no secret was using TRT from 2007 until it was banned in early 2014, has certainly not faced the questioning and scrutiny that Belfort has on the same subject.

Henderson too gave no sign of wanting to hang up his gloves, despite now being just 2-6 since November 2011. In this instance, the stoppage from Yamasaki was likely just quick enough for the former Pride and Strikeforce champion to convince himself that he got jobbed.

And so two very long and odd careers keep on trucking.

Having said that, a title shot is pretty much out the window, which means if he continues to fight, he’ll either be doing it for a paycheck or to finish up what is likely his final UFC contract.