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Take a look at the scorecard giving Michael Bisping the win over Dan Henderson
No one could have predicted that the UFC 204 main event between Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson would turn into a back-and-forth war that lasted all 25 minutes.
Henderson landed the fight with Bisping because he knocked out the current middleweight champion in devastating fashion when they last met at UFC 100 in 2009.
More recently, Henderson has suffered through several ups and downs while going just 2-3 over his past five fights while Bisping was enjoying the prime of his career with a slew of impressive wins, including a victory over Anderson Silva and a first-round knockout over Luke Rockhold.
None of that mattered once Bisping and Henderson stepped back into the Octagon together for the first time in six years.
Late in round one, Henderson dropped the hammer on Bisping with an explosive right hand that flattened the middleweight champion and it appeared like the fight was going to be stopped. Bisping survived but then got dropped again in the second round.
Henderson couldn't quite put him away and Bisping came back to out strike the 46-year old veteran throughout the final 15 minutes in the cage together. When it was all said and done, the judges returned scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46, all in favor of Bisping, who retained the title in his first defense.
Take a look at the scorecard below to see how the judges saw the fight:
Despite a knockdown and near finish in round one, not a single judge scoring the fight gave Henderson a 10-8 round. Henderson didn't agree with that call considering how close he came to putting Bisping away that early, but all three judges said the same thing.
In round two, both Andreas Gruner and Jeff Mullen gave Henderson the nod after he knocked Bisping down for a second time, but judge Andy Roberts opted to give it to the incumbent champion, who did control most of the action until he got dropped by the challenger.
As it turns out, that was the only real dissension on the final decision with all three judges scores rounds 3, 4 and 5 for Bisping. In other words, even if Roberts gave Henderson the second round, the result of the fight would have still gone to Bisping by unanimous decision.
According to FightMetric, Bisping outlanded Henderson 119 to 81 in total significant strikes. At the same time, Henderson landed the only two knockdowns of the entire fight as well as a takedown in the fifth round.
In the end, Bisping still left the Octagon with the gold around his waist.
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