King of Violence 2011: Dan Henderson

So what was Dan Henderson up to when he wasn’t hookin Brad Penny up with chicks and tappin’ ass at Cardinals games? Well, getting paid to beat up professional fighters in savage fashion of course.

The calendar year of 2011 just might have been the most violently impressive one of the Mixed Martial Arts legends career. Lets take a gander at it in a nutshell.

• March 5th: “Hendo” drops another H-Bomb. This time the victim is  Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante. Henderson enters Columbus, Ohio, takes Feijao’s Strikeforce Light Heavyweight strap and puts on a couple of pounds to face the one and only Fedor Emelianenko in the most anticipated match up of the summer.

• July 30th: Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Hendo. A fantasy match up between two legends of the sport. A match up that would be the final one for each fighter under the Strikeforce banner. As stated before, Hendo had to pack on a couple pounds in order to fight in Fedor’s weight class. After a 28 fight undefeated streak spanning nearly a decade, the Russian Sambo mastermind entered the fight riding a two fight losing streak. However, the man many including myself consider the greatest Heavyweight of all time had still yet to be KO’ed in competition . Former PRIDE Welterweight and Middleweight Champion Dan Henderson would change that on July 30th in the suburbs of Chicago. Although the official result of the fight was a TKO, Hendo knocked his opponent out cold with a brilliantly placed right hand under the armpit of a prone Fedor sending him face first into the canvas.

• August 24th: Dan Henderson celebrates the beginning of his 41st year on the planet.

• November 19th: Hendo returns to the UFC to take on Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in one of the most highly anticipated 5 Round Non Title fights to date. Both Hendo and Rua delivered an effort that won them “Fight of the Year” honors on many respected Mixed Martial Arts websites. Henderson earned the victory via Unanimous Decision in what was the greatest back and forth war in the History of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Henderson enters 2012 more dangerous than he has ever been in his illustrious fighting life. Could he be the one to dethrone current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones? Stay tuned.

@danhendo