The Many Dan Hendersons
The Many Dan Hendersons
Rami Genauer Mar 1, 2008
It seems Dan Henderson
(Pictures) is one belt short.
Having essentially surrendered his Pride 205-pound title to Quinton Jackson (Pictures), Henderson finds himself in the still-enviable position of only holding one championship. Lucky for him, this Saturday's showdown with Anderson Silva provides just the opportunity he needs to right that wrong.
The fight could go any number of ways, but all of it depends on
which Henderson shows up in Columbus, Ohio. Having tracked and
scored every fight in Henderson's career, FightMetric data
brings to light the many facets of the fight personality that is
Dan Henderson (Pictures).
Disclaimer: Henderson's five fights in the 1999 Rings tournament have not been included in this study. The lack of strikes on the ground in Rings fundamentally changes the sport. As such, the data from those fights are not comparable to the other 23 bouts in his career.
This is the Dan everyone knows and loves, the one who has earned title shots in each of his last three bouts. Dangerous Dan hits hard, owns the clinch and executes takedowns with ease.
Hitting hard on the feet is what he does best, so it's only natural for him to roll with that natural ability. Whereas most strikers use a lead jab to keep opponents at bay or to start off a one-two combination, Henderson drops the one and skips right to the power strikes. Of the 753 head strikes he has attempted on the feet during his career, 647 of them have been power shots, or 86 percent. The average fighter only throws power strikes 33 percent of the time.
As for accuracy, that's where the clinch comes into play. Using a Greco-Roman body lock or pressing his opponent against the fence, ropes or corner, Henderson controls the positioning into almost a lull before exploding with more powerful strikes. As opposed to his striking at a distance, where Henderson connects on about 29 percent of strikes, his clinch striking accuracy is close to 70 percent. This is remarkable because the power-to-jab proportion is still about 86 percent. This takes clinch effectiveness to a new level.
As if having to deal with Henderson's striking effectiveness in the clinch wasn't bad enough, his takedown skills from that position are superb. While his success rate with takedown shots from the outside stands at a pedestrian 29 percent, Henderson has landed 32 of the 40 clinch takedowns he's attempted. An 80 percent success rate is simply unheard of. One would think that would introduce us to …
Dominant Dan
Despite the talents and success listed above, we haven't seen that much of this Dan. The FightMetric system uses a stat called TPR (Total Performance Rating) to measure the quality of a fighter's performance based on six statistical components (think of it like the NFL's Passer Rating for quarterbacks).
Scored on a scale between 0-100, the average score for a fight winner is 55. Henderson's median TPR across his career is 62, which is above average, though hardly dominant (see the end of this article for a Flash report containing Henderson's career TPR data). By comparison, Anderson Silva's median TPR is 89. The difference is that Silva usually wins by stoppage, whereas most of the time we get …
Decision Dan
Is there another fighter who has been involved in as many close decisions as Henderson? He began his UFC career by winning a middleweight tournament with two extremely close decisions over Allan Goes (Pictures) and Carlos Newton (Pictures). On a different night, with different judges, it's not hard to imagine Henderson losing one of those fights. Who knows how his career might have turned out that way?
Henderson's non-Rings record is 17-6, with 11 of those fights going the distance. Using FightMetric's calculations, we can see how close those fights were. Bouts where the TPR's of the winner and loser are less than 20 points apart are considered close fights. Only three of Henderson's decisions were decisive (Belfort, the first Misaki fight and his loss to Wanderlei Silva (Pictures)), with the other eight extremely close contests. What made several of those decisions so close was the presence of …
Droppable Dan
Some fighters are renowned for their chins because it would take a baseball bat to bring them down. Henderson is not one of those fighters. Unlike Silva, who has never been knocked down in his career, Henderson has been knocked down by strikes six times. While some came at the hands of feared strikers like Wanderlei Silva (Pictures) and Quinton Jackson (Pictures), Henderson has also been dropped by the likes of Carlos Newton (Pictures) and Akira Shoji (Pictures), who have a total of three strike stoppages between them.
It's true some of those instances were the result of bad foot positioning after missing with a wild strike. Nonetheless, any time you go down after a strike, you are wide open to a big shot on the ground.
But before getting too carried away, you should probably meet …
Durable Dan
Yes, Henderson will occasionally go down after a punch, but he has never seemed too much worse for wear. After getting knocked down by Goes, Henderson took an illegal soccer kick flush to the face. Not only was he OK, he was so unfazed that he immediately reversed Goes and slapped on a guillotine.
For his career, Henderson has spent about 195 minutes in action. During that time, he's absorbed 401 heavy strikes, or about two per in-ring minute. By contrast, Silva has absorbed only 140 heavy strikes in 193 minutes, less than three quarters of a strike per minute. And he will avoid one particular kind of strike belonging to …
Deprived Dan
This Dan really misses the old Pride days. Knees to the head on the ground were especially useful to Henderson because so many of his clinch takedowns landed him on top in side-control. In total, Henderson has been in side position 17 out of the 40 times he has passed his opponent's guard. That's more times than he's even been in half-guard, which is where most fighters pass to most often. That has to be good news considering that Silva's most convincing losses -- to Daiju Takase (Pictures) and Luiz Azeredo (Pictures) -- came about because he was controlled for most of the fight from side position.
Of course all of this depends on …
Depleted Dan?
The phantom Dan, we can't even be sure that this one exists. Is Henderson the same fighter at 185 that he is at light heavyweight? Of his five fights at a lower weight class, Henderson has put on two below-average performances (Bustamante and Misaki II), two above-average performances (Gono and Misaki I) and a fight against Ryo Chonan (Pictures) that was too short to really tell anything.
Only one Dan Henderson (Pictures) steps into the Octagon on Saturday night. No matter which one shows up, Silva is pretty much guaranteed a tough fight.
Having essentially surrendered his Pride 205-pound title to Quinton Jackson (Pictures), Henderson finds himself in the still-enviable position of only holding one championship. Lucky for him, this Saturday's showdown with Anderson Silva provides just the opportunity he needs to right that wrong.
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Disclaimer: Henderson's five fights in the 1999 Rings tournament have not been included in this study. The lack of strikes on the ground in Rings fundamentally changes the sport. As such, the data from those fights are not comparable to the other 23 bouts in his career.
Dangerous Dan
This is the Dan everyone knows and loves, the one who has earned title shots in each of his last three bouts. Dangerous Dan hits hard, owns the clinch and executes takedowns with ease.
Hitting hard on the feet is what he does best, so it's only natural for him to roll with that natural ability. Whereas most strikers use a lead jab to keep opponents at bay or to start off a one-two combination, Henderson drops the one and skips right to the power strikes. Of the 753 head strikes he has attempted on the feet during his career, 647 of them have been power shots, or 86 percent. The average fighter only throws power strikes 33 percent of the time.
As for accuracy, that's where the clinch comes into play. Using a Greco-Roman body lock or pressing his opponent against the fence, ropes or corner, Henderson controls the positioning into almost a lull before exploding with more powerful strikes. As opposed to his striking at a distance, where Henderson connects on about 29 percent of strikes, his clinch striking accuracy is close to 70 percent. This is remarkable because the power-to-jab proportion is still about 86 percent. This takes clinch effectiveness to a new level.
As if having to deal with Henderson's striking effectiveness in the clinch wasn't bad enough, his takedown skills from that position are superb. While his success rate with takedown shots from the outside stands at a pedestrian 29 percent, Henderson has landed 32 of the 40 clinch takedowns he's attempted. An 80 percent success rate is simply unheard of. One would think that would introduce us to …
Dominant Dan
Despite the talents and success listed above, we haven't seen that much of this Dan. The FightMetric system uses a stat called TPR (Total Performance Rating) to measure the quality of a fighter's performance based on six statistical components (think of it like the NFL's Passer Rating for quarterbacks).
Scored on a scale between 0-100, the average score for a fight winner is 55. Henderson's median TPR across his career is 62, which is above average, though hardly dominant (see the end of this article for a Flash report containing Henderson's career TPR data). By comparison, Anderson Silva's median TPR is 89. The difference is that Silva usually wins by stoppage, whereas most of the time we get …
Decision Dan
Is there another fighter who has been involved in as many close decisions as Henderson? He began his UFC career by winning a middleweight tournament with two extremely close decisions over Allan Goes (Pictures) and Carlos Newton (Pictures). On a different night, with different judges, it's not hard to imagine Henderson losing one of those fights. Who knows how his career might have turned out that way?
Henderson's non-Rings record is 17-6, with 11 of those fights going the distance. Using FightMetric's calculations, we can see how close those fights were. Bouts where the TPR's of the winner and loser are less than 20 points apart are considered close fights. Only three of Henderson's decisions were decisive (Belfort, the first Misaki fight and his loss to Wanderlei Silva (Pictures)), with the other eight extremely close contests. What made several of those decisions so close was the presence of …
Droppable Dan
Some fighters are renowned for their chins because it would take a baseball bat to bring them down. Henderson is not one of those fighters. Unlike Silva, who has never been knocked down in his career, Henderson has been knocked down by strikes six times. While some came at the hands of feared strikers like Wanderlei Silva (Pictures) and Quinton Jackson (Pictures), Henderson has also been dropped by the likes of Carlos Newton (Pictures) and Akira Shoji (Pictures), who have a total of three strike stoppages between them.
It's true some of those instances were the result of bad foot positioning after missing with a wild strike. Nonetheless, any time you go down after a strike, you are wide open to a big shot on the ground.
But before getting too carried away, you should probably meet …
Durable Dan
Yes, Henderson will occasionally go down after a punch, but he has never seemed too much worse for wear. After getting knocked down by Goes, Henderson took an illegal soccer kick flush to the face. Not only was he OK, he was so unfazed that he immediately reversed Goes and slapped on a guillotine.
For his career, Henderson has spent about 195 minutes in action. During that time, he's absorbed 401 heavy strikes, or about two per in-ring minute. By contrast, Silva has absorbed only 140 heavy strikes in 193 minutes, less than three quarters of a strike per minute. And he will avoid one particular kind of strike belonging to …
Deprived Dan
This Dan really misses the old Pride days. Knees to the head on the ground were especially useful to Henderson because so many of his clinch takedowns landed him on top in side-control. In total, Henderson has been in side position 17 out of the 40 times he has passed his opponent's guard. That's more times than he's even been in half-guard, which is where most fighters pass to most often. That has to be good news considering that Silva's most convincing losses -- to Daiju Takase (Pictures) and Luiz Azeredo (Pictures) -- came about because he was controlled for most of the fight from side position.
Of course all of this depends on …
Depleted Dan?
The phantom Dan, we can't even be sure that this one exists. Is Henderson the same fighter at 185 that he is at light heavyweight? Of his five fights at a lower weight class, Henderson has put on two below-average performances (Bustamante and Misaki II), two above-average performances (Gono and Misaki I) and a fight against Ryo Chonan (Pictures) that was too short to really tell anything.
Only one Dan Henderson (Pictures) steps into the Octagon on Saturday night. No matter which one shows up, Silva is pretty much guaranteed a tough fight.
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