Henderson rallies back to stop Shogun Rua at UFC Fight Night 38

Dan Henderson rallied back from a lackluster performance in the early rounds to score a vindicating stoppage over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in their rematch at UFC Fight Night 38 on Monday morning (PHI time) at Nelio Dias Gymnasium in Natal, Brazil.

Henderson came back from being down two rounds to none, landing a powerful right hand that marked the end of action at 1:31 of the third round.

Rua flaunted his stiff jabs and corpulent leg kicks as he had the former two-division PRIDE titleholder reeling and on the verge of being stopped late in the first round.

The 6-foot-1 Brazilian mauler and former UFC light heavyweight champion infiltrated Henderson’s defense with a right hook-left hook combination and ferocious ground-and-pound.

In the second round, “Shogun” floored the two-time Olympian with a right uppercut, but he failed to exploit, settling in Henderson’s guard before referee Herb Dean stood up both fighters.

As the two exited a clinch in the third round, Henderson threw his massive right fist that clouted Rua’s nose, driving him crisscrossing backwards.

“Hendo” immediately went for the stoppage as he bombed away with ground-strikes. Rua tried to put himself back onto his feet, but he was completely dazed and fell to his back once again, clearly shaken by the barrage of punches.

“This one probably means more than most. ‘Shogun’ has been such a big part of mixed martial arts, and such a talented and tough fighter,” Henderson said in his post-fight interview.

With the remarkable triumph over Rua, the 40-year-old Henderson snaps his three-fight losing skid and improves his professional record to 30-11.

“The year I had last year, coming off that, I wanted to make sure I got a win,” he admitted.

On the other hand, Rua drops his win-loss card to 22-9 and is back in the loss column after his December knockout of James Te-Huna.

Undercard results

C.B. Dollaway silenced the hostile Brazilian crowd by ousting The Ultimate Fighter Brazil winner Cezar Ferreira in the co-headliner of UFC Fight Night 38.

Ferreira had the highest confidence coming into the middleweight scrap as Vitor Belfort’s protégé came out swinging for the knockout and backed Dollaway up with hard punches and a head kick.

As Dollaway crouched along the fence to dodge Ferreira’s lunging hooks, he launched a quick right hand and then found a spot to smack his short left hook, sending his opponent down to the mat.

“The Doberman” pounced on Ferreira and clobbered him with more punches from the top position to force referee Mario Yamasaki to call a halt to the contest at the 0:39 mark of the opening salvo.

“Obviously, my stand-up game is developing,” said the 30-year-old Dollaway, who comes from a stellar NCAA Division I wrestling background. “We’re gonna work our way into the Top 10 this year.”

In other matches, Michel Prazeres dominated Mairbek Taisumov as he mixed his proficient grappling pedigree with heavy punches and kicks to get the undivided vote of 30-25 from the judges’ scorecards.

Leonardo Santos versus Norman Parke resulted in a majority draw with the scores of 29-27, 28-28 and 28-28, while Fabio Maldonado battered former Hofstra University football player Gian Villante en route to a unanimous-decision victory with 29-27, 29-28 and 29-28 counts.

Meanwhile, Rony Jason opened the main card with a technical-knockout finish in the first frame, where his looping right hand caught Steven Siler high on the head and jolted him off to one side with a follow-up left to put him down. – Rappler.com