2. Wanderlei Silva vs. Dan Henderson II
Back at PRIDE 12 these two met for the first time, with the Axe Murderer pulling out a decision victory over Hendo.
Henderson had won the PRIDE welterweight championship in 2005, by winning the promotion’s grand prix. He would then jump up to light heavyweight at PRIDE 32 and knocked out Vitor Belfort, so there was a lot of hype behind him at the time. This bout was scheduled to unify the welterweight and middleweight championships on the company’s second to last event.
Henderson scored the big upset by knocking out Silva, and brought the unified titles to the UFC with him. In his first fight in the UFC Hendo lost to Rampage Jackson, who then was able to claim he was the Pride and UFC champion. Jackson was said to have been upset that the UFC didn’t produce some type of PRIDE belt to be on the line in the fight.
