Check out the best highlights from this day in history with MMA Junkie’s “Combat Rewind.”
There’s “Flashback Friday” and “Throwback Thursday” (and Tuesday, too, if you want). But at MMA Junkie, we figured why not expand that to every day?
“Combat Rewind” brings you some of combat sports’ best highlights from every calendar day of the year. It’s a look back at history, courtesy of the UFC Fight Pass archives, featuring stellar finishes and classic moments in MMA and beyond on their anniversaries.
So kick back and relive the following bits of greatness in the video above:
ShoXC 6: [autotag]Bao Quach[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Douglas Evans[/autotag] – April 5, 2008
ShoXC 6: [autotag]Shayna Baszler[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Keiko Tamai[/autotag] – April 5, 2008
ShoXC 6: [autotag]Poai Suganuma[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Jared Hamman[/autotag] – April 5, 2008
WEC 40: [autotag]Anthony Njokuani[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Bart Palaszeski[/autotag] – April 5, 2009
WEC 40: [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Shane Roller[/autotag] – April 5, 2009
Friday Night Fights: [autotag]Shawn Ellis[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Brima Kamara[/autotag] – April 5, 2019
Fight footage courtesy of UFC Fight Pass, the UFC’s official digital subscription service, which is currently offering a seven-day free trial. UFC Fight Pass gives fans access to exclusive live UFC events and fights, exclusive live MMA and combat sports events from around the world, exclusive original and behind the scenes content and unprecedented 24-7 access to the world’s biggest fight library.
Benson Henderson doesn’t plan on leaving things in the hands of the judges this time around against Michael Chandler.
NEW YORK – [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag] doesn’t plan on leaving things in the hands of the judges this time around.
Henderson (28-8 MMA, 5-3 BMMA) rematches [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag] (20-5 MMA, 17-5 BMMA) at Bellator 244 on June 6 in Chicago in a title eliminator bout, looking to avenge his loss from over three years ago, when he was narrowly defeated by then-Bellator lightweight champion Chandler.
The two were originally scheduled to rematch in December, but an injury forced Henderson out, the first time in the former UFC and WEC lightweight champion’s 14-year career he withdrew from a fight.
Henderson revealed that he actually went into his first fight with Chandler carrying a series of injuries, so he vowed not to make the same mistake again, opting to pull out, and have the fight rescheduled for a later date.
“My last fight against Chandler, I fought with a torn ACL,” Henderson told MMA Junkie. “I had a torn ACL, torn MCL, two torn meniscus and I still decided to fight anyways. Probably not the best decision. So for this one, I was like ‘yeah, maybe I should be healthy.’ You’re never like one-hundred percent, you always have nicks and bruises but fighting with a torn ACL, fighting with a broken bone, probably wouldn’t have been a smart thing to do.”
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Their first fight was close, as Henderson suffered a split-decision loss. But this time, he thinks battle-tested Chandler won’t be as durable, and he’ll look to capitalize.
“Chandler, he can get it as many times as he wants to,” Henderson said. “If he wants to fight 10 times, that’s no problem but I’m going to win nine of those 10 times. He got the first one, they gave it to him as a split decision. The next nine, I’ll be putting him away. I’ll be finishing him, looking for submissions, looking for the knockout. His chin’s not the same as it was earlier in his career.
“Earlier in his career, he was known as throwing hard, and having a good chin and this and that. Now he doesn’t throw quite as hard. Now his chin is a little more suspect and he relies on his wrestling a lot more in his later fights and I don’t think he’ll be able to rely on that against me, outwrestling me in our next fight.”
Michael Chandler doesn’t go the distance often, but he knows he’s in for another battle when he rematches Benson Henderson.
NEW YORK – [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag] doesn’t go the distance often, but he knows he’s in for another battle when he rematches [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag].
Former three-time Bellator lightweight champion Chandler (20-5 MMA, 17-5 BMMA) first faced Henderson (28-8 MMA, 5-3 BMMA) over three years ago, edging him out in a back-and-forth battle to retain his title.
The two will run it back in the main event of Bellator 244 on June 6 in Chicago in a title eliminator bout. They were originally scheduled to meet this past December, but an injury forced Henderson out, and Chandler faced Sidney Outlaw instead, knocking him out in the first round.
With another win under his belt, the stakes are higher for Chandler, who looks to get yet another opportunity at the title with a win – but it’s a position with which he’s certainly familiar.
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“This is a fight that needed to happen,” Chandler told MMA Junkie. “The lightweight division isn’t the deepest at Bellator, so two of the top guys going at it. They were talking about it being a title eliminator – whoever wins this is going to fight for the title – and that’s kind of where I’ve been at my whole career. As soon as I beat Eddie Alvarez, I was fighting for the title or to get to that title.”
Former UFC and WEC lightweight champ Henderson has proven to be a hard out for many opponents with his cardio and toughness, having gone the distance in over half of his fights.
And for Chandler, who boasts a 75 percent finishing rate, he thinks the fight being three rounds this time plays in his favor.
“This fight poses some great threats,” Chandler said. “Benson Henderson is a hard guy – he’s not the most talented fighter, but he’s a hard guy to beat. He’s not an easy guy to beat, you’ve got to put a pace on him, you’ve got to put a gameplan on him. This three-round fight lends it’s hand more than a five-round fight would and I’m excited to – this fight is easier for me because I can put my foot on the gas for 15 minutes and put it on him and give the fans what they want and hopefully fight for the title later on this year.”
Having already competed with Henderson for 25 minutes, Chandler said he will look to approach things slightly different this time around. Instead of chasing the finish, he insists he’ll let it come naturally.
“I also know, chances of me finishing him, in my mind the way I’m approaching it, are a lot less than I fought the first fight,” Chandler said. “The first fight, I thought I was going to go out there and finish him, so you saw how I fought the first round, second round, third, fourth, fifth round. This fight, I’m going to put on a good pace, a good methodical pace. Still violent, still deadly like I always am, bite down on my mouth piece and throw techniques with ill-intent but not looking for that knockout shot – looking to really just break him.”
Bellator 244 takes place at Wintrust Arena. The night’s main card streams on DAZN.
Check out the faceoffs from some of the biggest upcoming fights on the Bellator schedule, including Gegard Mousasi vs. Douglas Lima.
NEW YORK – Bellator hosted a news conference Monday to promote the biggest bouts on its upcoming schedule, and at the end of it the fighters got face to face.
Fourteen athletes from future championship, main event and featherweight grand prix tournament bouts were in attendance, including the headliners from Friday’s Bellator 241 event, [autotag]Patricio Freire[/autotag] and [autotag]Pedro Carvalho[/autotag].
In addition, a number of others got a chance to go toe-to-toe, including: [autotag]Emmanuel Sanchez[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Daniel Weichel[/autotag] (Bellator 241 on March 13), [autotag]Ryan Bader[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Vadim Nemkov[/autotag] (Bellator 242 on May 9), [autotag]Gegard Mousasi[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Douglas Lima[/autotag] (Bellator 242), [autotag]James Gallagher[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Cal Ellenor[/autotag] (Bellator Europe 8 on May 16), [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag] (Bellator 244 on June 6), [autotag]A.J. McKee[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Darrion Caldwell[/autotag] (Bellator 244) and [autotag]Peter Queally[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Patricky Freire[/autotag] (Bellator Dublin on Oct. 3).
Watch the video above to see all the faceoffs from the media event, which took place at Viacom headquarters in Manhattan.
Bellator will return to Chicago proper for the first time in nearly 10 years with a rematch and a key featherweight tournament fight.
Bellator in June will return to the city of Chicago proper for the first time in nearly 10 years.
Bellator 244 is set for June 6 at Wintrust Arena on the near South Side of the city, the promotion announced today. The main card streams on DAZN following prelims on MMA Junkie.
In the main event, former lightweight champion [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag] (20-5 MMA, 17-5 BMMA) meets former UFC and WEC champ [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag] (28-8 MMA, 5-3 BMMA) in a rematch from a 2016 fight Chandler won by split decision. In the co-feature, [autotag]A.J. McKee[/autotag] (16-0 MMA, 16-0 BMMA) will take on [autotag]Darrion Caldwell[/autotag] (15-3 MMA, 12-2 BMMA) in the semifinals of the ongoing featherweight grand prix.
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Benson Henderson vs. Michael Chandler
Chandler got back in the win column this past December in Japan with a first-round knockout of Sidney Outlaw at Bellator 237. It was his rebound from a title fight loss to Patricio Freire at Bellator 221 in May 2019. Freire knocked chandler out in 61 seconds to claim the lightweight belt to go along with his featherweight title.
Before the loss to Freire, Chandler had three straight wins, including a decision over Brent Primus in December 2018 to reclaim the lightweight title.
Henderson has rebounded with four straight wins after starting his Bellator tenure on a 1-3 slide. He debuted with the promotion nearly four years ago and fought Andrey Koreshkov for the welterweight title, but lost a decision. He bounced back with a return to lightweight and a win over current dual champion Freire, who suffered a leg injury that led to a Henderson TKO.
After that first Bellator win, he fought Chandler for the lightweight title while Chandler still was champion, but dropped a split call. He had a second straight split decision setback nearly 10 months later with a loss to Patricky Freire at Bellator 183. But since then, he has a submission win over Roger Huerta and three straight decisions over Saad Awad, Adam Piccolotti and Myles Jury.
McKee will be looking to book a trip to the tournament final. This past September, he knocked out Georgi Karakhanyan in just eight seconds at Bellator 228 in the opening round. In his quarterfinal fight in Honolulu in December, he stopped Derek Campos with a third-round armbar to stay unbeaten.
Caldwell, a former Bellator bantamweight champion, has back-to-back wins after moving up to featherweight for the tournament. Prior to that, he had successive losses to Kyoji Horiguchi. The first came in a Rizin event for that promotion’s bantamweight title in Japan, but he lost by submission. The two rematched in June 2019 for Bellator’s bantamweight belt, but Horiguchi took a unanimous decision and Caldwell lost the title.
Caldwell moved to featherweight, a division in which he experimented in a one-off fight while bantamweight champ, and took a unanimous decision from Henry Corrales in the tournament’s opening round. In January, he handed Adam Borics the first loss of his career with a submission in the quarterfinals to advance to the meeting with McKee.
Wintrust Arena is less than three years old. The 10,000-seat venue is the home of the DePaul University men’s and women’s basketball teams, as well as the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. Bellator’s recent events in the Chicago area have taken place at Allstate Arena in northwest suburban Rosemont, Ill., about 20 miles from the city. Bellator held events there in 2017, 2018 and 2019. But the promotion’s most recent visit to Chicago proper was in August 2010 for Bellator 25 at the Chicago Theatre.
The rematch between Michael Chandler and Benson Henderson will have to wait.
The rematch between [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag] and [autotag]Benson Henderson[/autotag] will have to wait.
Henderson (28-8 MMA, 5-3 BMMA) has suffered an injury that’s forced him to withdraw from his planned rematch with Chandler (19-5 MMA, 16-5 BMMA) at Bellator 237 this month. As a result, [autotag]Sidney Outlaw[/autotag] (13-3 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) has agreed to step in to face the former three-time lightweight champion.
MMA Junkie confirmed the change with a Bellator official on Thursday. The exact nature of Henderson’s injury remains unknown.
The latest Bellator 237 lineup now includes:
MAIN CARD
