7. The Size Difference Is Minimal
Dan Henderson only recently made his move back up to 205 pounds after taking a fight against Jake Shields at 185 pounds in April 2010.
The move back up in weight, Henderson said, was just a more comfortable situation for him. At his age, he didn’t feel that cutting so much weight and depleting his body was healthy or something that he wanted to do.
But now Henderson is moving up again in weight classes to fight Fedor as a heavyweight.
This simple move-up is causing a lot of friction between fans who believe that Henderson is making the right move by going up, and those who feel that Fedor should be the one who has to move down to 205 to fight Henderson.
After all, Emelianenko is actually a relatively small heavyweight, regularly weighing in at around 230 pounds—35 pounds under the maximum allowed weight in his division.
In fact, Henderson’s most recent opponent, Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante, “walks around” at around 225 pounds, only a few pounds smaller than the former Pride heavyweight champion.
When on Inside MMA, Henderson also commented on the weight issue.
“I don’t think Fedor was prepared to cut down to 205 and it doesn’t really matter to me,” he concluded. “He’s not a huge heavyweight anyway. He’s not somebody that’s going to take me down and hang onto me.”