UFC 93 Fight Prediction - Franklin vs. Henderson
This weekend in Dublin, Ireland, UFC 93 will be kicking off with a great Main Event of two huge names in MMA… Rich “Ace” Franklin and Dan “Hendo” Henderson. The winner of this fight should catapult himself right into the middle of the Light Heavyweight title picture to challenge the current champ, Rashad Evans. Clearly understand this…it’s extremely easy to sit on my couch eating pizza and slamming beer to be critical of fighters when the heaviest workload I’ll be doing is racing to the bathroom between fights. Although, after 16 years of watching MMA evolve into the most complete and exciting combat sport on the face of the planet, I feel that it’s my duty to throw a few opinions out there to create some discussion on how these fights will go. With that being said, let’s get into it…
Rich Franklin (24-3) vs. Dan Henderson (23-7)
This fight will be very exciting with a lot of punches being thrown both standing and on the ground. These athletes are at a very high level with their strength and conditioning and both know how to win.
Franklin has only three loses in his career and two are from Anderson Silva (pound-for-pound the best) and one coming from Lyoto Machida (undefeated). That’s one hell of a resume, but outside of those two fighters, he’s beaten a truck load of “B” fighters and has never taken out an A-lister. He has good hands, solid muy thai, high pressure ground-n-pound, and decent wrestling. He is a good representative of the modern fighter demonstrating a high level of intelligence, solid game planning, and the ability to adapt within the octagon when adjustments are needed. This makes him the complete package.
Henderson on the other hand is a throw back to the Gladiators. He is truly a bad-ass and the alpha male. With a long history of training with Randy Couture and Matt Lindland, a resume of wins over many of the industry’s best light heavy and middleweight fighters, and a little asterisk by his name that says Olympian, there are very few names in the history of this sport that can provide a more decorated and celebrated career than Hendo.
Ultimately, the fight will be won upon who can apply and execute their game plan better than their opponent. I see the fight being a technical bout initially with Franklin possibly out scoring Henderson in the first round with more disciplined hands, but Henderson will turn this bout into a dog fight and end up bull dogging Franklin in the later rounds. His dirty boxing will slow Franklin’s pace and movement down allowing Henderson to score takedowns and applying his heavy ground-n-pound attack. Eventually, Franklin will succumb to the overwhelming pressure and will fatigue because he has never seen the strength or animosity of a wrestler of this magnitude. My prediction is Henderson by TKO in the third.
-MMA Punch Fight Analyst Jon Terrazas
