Dana White: “I guarantee you 1,000 percent that Dan Henderson is signed by Strikeforce”

It looks like Dan Henderson and the UFC could not come to an agreement on what both sides felt the former PRIDE dual champion was worth financially. As we all know Henderson has said he feels the UFC was not offering him what he felt he was worth and Dana White has said he asked for an “obscene” amount of money.

Now in a interview with Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports UFC president Dana White revealed that Dan Henderson was going to sign with the California based promotion.

“I guarantee you 1,000 percent that Dan Henderson is signed by Strikeforce.”
Iole also asked StrikeForce CEO Scott Coker today at yesterday’s “Fedor vs Rogers” press conference where he did not confirm or deny White’s claim.

“Honestly, I got a call from Dan’s management a couple of days ago telling me Dan had turned down the UFC’s offer,” Coker said. “I guess the UFC made an offer and put a deadline on it. They turned it down and were calling to talk to me, but I told him I have this huge fight and there’s a tremendous amount going on and I couldn’t really deal with it at this point.”
White went on to say that he did not take Henderson’s signing with StrikeForce personally and would continue to be his friend.

“Dan and I have been friends and we will continue to be friends, but it just didn’t work out and he went to Strikeforce,” White said.
Coker then went on to refute Dana White’s claim and said that he did not have the former PRIDE double champion under contract as much as he would like to have him.

“Honestly, though, we don’t have a deal with him yet. I’ve been up to my eyeballs working on this fight and I just haven’t had time to deal with that yet.”
I don’t know if this is a done deal just yet we have heard this before, but Dana saying it is “1,000 percent” done is pretty convincing. It is just sad to see that Dan Henderson may never fight Nate Marquardt or Anderson Silva (Again) in the Octagon.

I also think the UFC may have underestimated the amount of popularity Henderson may have gained on The Ultimate Fighter and at UFC 100 by knocking out Michael Bisping. While Henderson is not the loudest or most charismatic fighter in the game, he is the most accomplished fighter the sport has ever had from a technical view.

Henderson has won a UFC, PRIDE and Rings tournament and has held the PRIDE middleweight and welterweight title. Which is one hell of a resume that appears the UFC may have overlooked.

Props: urdirt.com