November 6, 2009 – 2:17 pm by fightlinker
The will he / won’t he thing going on with Dan Henderson possibly going to Strikeforce continues, with Dana White saying Dan has “1000%” already signed with Strikeforce and everyone else involved (Dan, Dan’s manager, and Scott Coker) saying he hasn’t. The big question now is whether we’re just splitting hairs over the status of the situation: even if he’s not technically signed by Strikeforce yet, it is something he’s at least looking into:
“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.”
Coker conceded he’d love to have Henderson under contract, but said White’s information is incorrect.
“Everyone who watches MMA knows the kind of fighter Dan Henderson is,” Coker said. “He’s a tough, aggressive, fun guy to watch. Who wouldn’t want a guy like that? Of course we do, and that’s why we’ve spoken with them.
“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.”
The vibe I get off this article (another slanty Kevin Iole piece, although to his credit he at least included the other side of the story this time) is there’s a chance Coker and Hendo are playing coy to make some announcement this Saturday. But honestly … there are better things to lie about than Dan’s signing status. Plus, what I get off this situation is that Dan and Strikeforce haven’t even talked money yet, and even then, is Dan Henderson really going to go to Strikeforce based on the principle that at least they’re paying him a ‘fair’ (albeit smaller) chunk of cash than the UFC? I doubt it, but I guess we’ll see.
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