Comments from Fighting Spirit Magazine (UK)

Tyler Durden

James Denton of Fighting Spirit Magazine in the UK (the one who asked Dana White the question where Dana responded that Dan Henderson didn't want to fight Chuck Liddell).

He writes: "Dana wasn't really knocking Hendo - he was trying to illustrate the point of how lousy the Pride matchmaking has been as pertains to Wanderlei Silva. I know, because I'm the one who asked Dana the question, and it was about Wanderlei, not Dan.

Dana said: 'Wanderlei needs to get a couple of wins under his belt before we start talking about fighting Chuck Liddell again. The thing that upset me so bad about that fight – that was probably the biggest fight in mixed martial arts and, you know, [Pride killed it with] bad matchmaking.

You don’t ever put a guy who’s Light Heavyweight Champion against a guy who’s Middleweight Champion, who already holds that belt. They moved him [Henderson] up there so that Wanderlei could beat him, but Dan Henderson’s a tough guy. If you’re gonna put him in against a guy, at least if he gets knocked out the way he did, [make it someone] who would be in line to fight Chuck next. And again, Dan Henderson’s a tough guy and he’d probably fight anybody, but he's not excited about fighting Chuck Liddell.

You know, he’d probably rather stay at middleweight. Dumb matchmaking.' The emphasis on how 'he's' not excited about fighting Chuck is important, because it was in support of a general theme Dana had been responding to about what's next for Bisping (ie when will he fight Chuck) and what's next for Chuck, to which Dana's response was 'No one's really excited about fighting Chuck right now.'" In other words, Henderson heard the quote out of context and was upset over nothing.