Fedor Emelianenko vs. Dan Henderson is a fight that has been talked about quite a bit over the last few months and, as SB Nation MMA's Jonathan Snowden reports, it will take place on Strikeforce's July 30 card in Chicago as the two MMA legends square off in the cage.
Actually, as Bloody Elbow's Brent Brookhouse points out, the fight wont' take place exactly in Chicago but rather at the Sears Centre in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates. The reason for this, Brookhouse opines, is that there is not the 9% entertainment tax in the suburbs like there is in Chicago itself.
The bout will be fought at an agreed upon weight of 220-pounds, according to Snowden, which is 15 pounds heavier than Henderson fights at in the light-heavyweight division and about 10 pounds lighter than Emelianenko is used to as one of the lighter heavyweight fighters.
Emilianenko (the No. 9 ranked heavyweight in the world according to the USA Today / SB Nation Consensus Rankings) is quite possibly the most popular fighter among hardcore mixed martial arts fans as the Russian was able to remain undefeated from April of 2001 through June 2010, but a pair of recent losses -- last June to former UFC castoff Fabricio Werdum and in February against Antonio Silva -- has taken him out of title contention and into contention for fun fights that fans will be interested in watching.
Henderson (the No. 7 ranked light-heavyweight according the USA Today / SB Nation Consensus Rankings), on the other hand, has won his last two fights with impressive knockout victories over Rafael Cavalcante and Renato "Babalu" Sobral after losing his Strikeforce debut to Jake Shields last Summer.
SB Nation's Luke Thomas recently discussed this bout on his radio show before it had actually been made, giving a good background on the situation for those that only casually follow MMA.
The rest of the card will be released in the coming months, but this is a great headlining fight for a Strikeforce card.