On this week’s episode of The MMA Hour, three-time UFC title challenger and recent Bellator MMA signee Chael Sonnen made an impromptu call-in to break a bit of combat sports news. Speaking to host Ariel Helwani, the legendary MMA mouthpiece announced the main and co-main events of a Submission Underground show scheduled for December 11.
The co-main event of this show, Sonnen announced, will pit top-ranked female bantamweight Miesha Tate against a former opponent in Jessica “Evil” Eye. The co-main event, meanwhile, will pit troubled light heavyweight GOAT Jon Jones with recently retired MMA legend Dan Henderson. These eight-minute grappling matches will occur under Eddie Bravo Invitational Rules. The event will occur at the Roseland Theatre in Portland, Oregon, and stream live on FloCombat.com.
Tate and Eye first met back in July of 2015. On that night, Tate weathered an early storm to capture a unanimous decision win. From there, she went on to win the UFC women’s bantamweight title from Holly Holm, only to lose that title to current champion Amanda Nunes in the main event of July’s UFC 200. Eye, meanwhile, unfortunately followed her loss to Tate with three more losses, coming up short against Julianna Peña, Sara McMann and most recently, Bethe Correia.
Despite being scheduled to do so in the main event 2012’s UFC 151, Jones and Henderson regrettably never met in the cage, as their matchup was nixed by a last-minute Henderson injury. After that planned matchup fell through, Jones went on to defend his title against Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen, Alexander Gustafsson, Glover Teixeira and Daniel Cormier, only to be stripped of the title following a laundry list of legal troubles. We last saw him in action earlier this year when he defeated Ovince St. Preux in the lone fight of a short-lived comeback. Though he has been handed a one-year sanction by the United States Anti-Doping Commission, Jones will still be allowed in the arena of professional grappling.
Henderson, meanwhile, spent the last few years experiencing hot-and-cold results at middleweight and light heavyweight. When we last saw him in action, he gave up a razor close decision to middleweight champion Michael Bisping in a bout that would go down as the last of his legendary MMA career.
Who do you think will come out on top in this Jones vs. Henderson grappling match? Sound off, PENN Nation!