“[Dan Henderson] used to be ‘Decision’ Dan Henderson until he discovered testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and then he became ‘Knockout’ Dan Henderson and knocks me out. He was on testosterone replacement therapy, as I said, at the time. I had no idea and here we are, seven years later and he’s still competing in the UFC when TRT was banned. The guy’s an absolute hypocrite. He was manipulating the system. He was cheating. Call it what you will. I’m very happy. I get to get my revenge on an even playing field… At 100, like I said, I lost in good style. Well done to him, but there were circumstances I wasn’t aware of at the time. The TRT. Since then, that’s bothered me. The fact that he’s still fighting now kind of confirms the fights that he was manipulating the system or cheating. That always bothers me. Listen, I know there’s other people that maybe or definitely are ahead of him in terms of rankings, but Dan Henderson is almost done. He said he’s only going to fight one more time. Those are the guys that are going nowhere. October is just around the corner. I believe it’s thirteen weeks until the fight. So, I’ll go out, I’ll beat Dan Henderson, I’ll pay him back for what happened in 2009 after cheating. Whoever’s next in line, they’ll still be there and we can go at it. No problem.”
-Michael Bisping talks about Dan Henderson and their rematch on Sirius XM’s The Luke Thomas Show (via MMAFighting.com).
Penick’s Analysis: That’s another interesting aspect of this fight to hit given the current landscape under USADA. We’re seeing fighters get popped left and right facing much more significant punishments while Henderson had an unknown yet sanctioned exemption for testosterone replacement years before it got brought to the attention of the MMA world as a whole. Henderson’s TRT use makes him one of numerous fighters Bisping has faced who have used performance enhancing drugs in some capacity. He’s scored some exciting wins to make people want to see this at all, and Bisping obviously has his reasons to want to avenge that loss, but it remains a somewhat ridiculous fight for the UFC to make again at this point in time.
[Photo (c) Jake Roth via USA Today Sports]
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