UFC 88 Breakdown: Henderson vs Palhares

UFC 88 is a cross roads for many different athletes. Some, young and hungry, look to move to the next level and closer to their dream of a title shot whereas, others, veterans of the sport, looking to get back to where they once where and hoping to win their way back to the title shot by beating the young lions who look to make them a stepping stone to future glory. This fight in a way, sets the mood of the evenings’ most talked about fights.

Rousimar “Toquinho” Palhares, a BJJ black belt and BTT fighter, made the mainstream audience take notice with his victory over Ivan Salavery but has been for a long time, one of the most talked about products out of the Brazilian Top Team. He is an excellent ground fighter with better than average strikes. He uses his strikes mostly as setups for a takedown so that he can implement his ground game. He comes from the same BJJ pedigree as current UFC interim heavyweight champion Noguiera and will definitely try and take the match to the ground and try and get a submission, once he gets past the first few minutes of the first round. What remains to be seen is how dominant he can be on the ground against an excellent wrestler in Dan “Hollywood” Henderson.

Dan Henderson, one of the most acclaimed MMA middleweights of all time, is coming off two title match losses and is fired up and ready to get some wins under his belt. His right hand is by now legendary and having KO’ed Wanderlei Silva, no one thinks that Hollywood is an easy opponent on his feet. Dan is probably the better wrestler and will be able to defend Palhares’ submission attempts pretty well, having being able to do so against Minotauro as well in PRIDE.

Hendo’s game plan seems pretty simple: Keep the fight on the feet as much as possible and go for the KO. If that doesn’t work, keep ground control and look to get mount and go for the Ground and Pound from there on. What remains to be seen is whether Hendo can keep Palhares’ shots at bay and remain aggressive and attacking past the first few minutes if he is taken to the ground by Toquinho.

A real toss up but I believe this will be a decision victory for Henderson.

Prediction: Dan Henderson by Decision.