Dan Henderson names Wanderlei Silva as toughest opponent, hardest hitter

Four-time UFC title challenger and former two-division PRIDE champ Dan Henderson needs to go back 16 years – all the way to Feb. 26, 2000 – to remember his toughest night of work.

Henderson, who on Saturday faces middleweight champ Michael Bisping at UFC 204, defeated three men – Gilbert Yvel, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Renato Sobral – in one night to win the Rings: King of Kings tournament. He tore his knee in the middle of fighting Nogueira. He went to decision in all three fights – 35 minutes of action. Tough night, indeed.

That day, hackers shut down the FBI’s website, O.J. Simpson sued for his murdered ex-wife’s phone records, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers who gunned down a man in the Bronx, and this song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The tournament win earned Henderson a shot in PRIDE, then an upstart promotion with the best assortment of talent outside the UFC. He would sign on to fight Wanderlei Silva at PRIDE 12 on Dec. 9. Silva was one year away from starting his reign of terror as the Japanese promotion’s middleweight champ.

That was Henderson’s toughest opponent.

“I wasn’t the best, condition-wise,” Henderson (32-14 MMA, 9-8 UFC), the No. 14 fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA middleweight rankings, told MMAjunkie video partner Champions.co. “He’s a tough guy. Hardest hitter might go to Wanderlei also.”

Check out the above video advance of Henderson’s pay-per-view rematch with No. 1-ranked champ Bisping (29-7 MMA, 19-7 UFC) at Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

For more on UFC 204, check out the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie. And for more videos from Champions.com, check out their YouTube page.