It’s the fight that never happened: Jon Jones vs Dan Henderson.
The headline match-up between then-UFC light heavyweight Champion Jones and the former two-weight PRIDE and Strikeforce champion Henderson was slated for UFC 151.
But just three weeks before the 2012 fight went down in Las Vegas, Henderson pulled out injured and Jones refused to face a replacement fighter.
It will always go down as the UFC’s lost show and it meant fight fans never got chance to see the two greats go to war.
Not getting the chance to face Jones is something that the 46-year-old veteran says he regrets after he called time on his MMA career after bowing out with a close-fought defeat against Michael Bisping.
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But then out of the blue, Chael Sonnen made a surprise visit to Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour Live and dropped the bombshell that the pair would finally be fighting.
He said that Jones and Henderson would face off in an eight-minute grappling match at Submission Underground 2 on December 11 with Miesha Tate vs Jessica Eye as co-main event.
But then Helwani threw a spanner in the works – asking him about the news that broke on Monday evening that Jones would be given the maximum penalty for a failed drugs test before UFC 200.
Sonnen, who had obviously not heard the news of Jones’ USADA ban, was audibly dumbfounded.
“That is news to me. That I did not know.
“I don’t think it affects it. But Ariel you just caught me off guard.
“Grappling never has in the past, but I imagine there could be some red tape there. ”
However Sonnen, who ironically put himself forward to face Jones at eight days’ notice for the ill-fated UFC 151, wasn’t too concerned.
It appears that grappling may float under the Athletic Commission guidelines, which means Jones could well be able to compete in the match-up which is live on PPV on FloCombat.com.
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Sonnen said the match between Jones and Henderson at Submission Underground was actually the idea of the former Lightheavyweight champ.
“It was pretty easy. Jon suggested it. He said ‘why don’t we do Dan Henderson?’
”We were in talks with Nick Diaz and Michael Bisping wanted the match and we took Jon’a advise.
”It did make some sense and it was the match that never happened.
”We might be the only promotion to ever get these two guys together.”
Even if it’s not all-out MMA, it will be incredible if these two men really do go head to head.
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