Henderson opened the fight with a takedown, but quickly got caught in a guillotine choke attempt. He extricated himself from this predicament only to find himself in a triangle choke that appeared for a moment to be a potential fight ending submission. That would not be the case, however, and Henderson would take control in the last half of the round with his powerful takedowns and ‘ground and pound’ punching assault. The almost even first round would prove to be the decisive frame of the fight.

Rounds two and three were all Henderson, as he took Cerrone down almost at will and began to pummel him on the ground. Cerrone managed a couple of submission attempts from the bottom, and did what he could to keep Henderson off of him with upkicks but nowhere near enough to salvage either round. At times, Cerrone looked downright clueless as to what tactical approach to take.

The tide would turn again in the fourth round, as Cerrone began to time Henderson’s takedown attempts. He became much more difficult to get to the ground, as well as administering punishment of his own after stuffing takedowns with punches and knee strikes. Later in the frame, Cerrone came close to ending the fight when he locked in a nasty and unorthodox choke that WEC commentator Frank Mir described as ‘almost an inverted rear naked choke’. After some tense moments, Henderson was able to escape. Cerrone would also control the final round, evading Henderson’s takedowns while scoring with his striking. He had another potential fight ending submission attempt in the fifth round, as he locked in an arm bar and appeared to have good leverage as he twisted Henderson’s arm into a nasty angle.

The decision itself was somewhat surprising, with Henderson winning all three judges’ scorecards by identical 48-47 scores. He’d clearly won rounds two and three, while Cerrone was the obvious winner of rounds four and five. This meant that all three judges had given the edge to Henderson in the first round, favoring his takedowns and ground punching attack over Cerrone’s two early submission attempts.

Henderson will now face WEC Lightweight Champion Jamie Varner to unify the titles. Varner entered the cage after the decision was announced to ‘cut a promo’ on the winner, and suggested the fight take place in December in Phoenix, Arizona though neither the date nor venue has been finalized.

Ross Everett is an extensively published freelance writer and a noted authority on sports gambling and harness racing. He contributes NFL betting picks for a number of media outlets. He lives in Southern Nevada with three dogs and a pot bellied pig.

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Silva (26-4-0) enters off an odd unanimous decision victory over Demian Maia at UFC 112. It was odd because while Silva did land plenty of punches and kicks, he spent most of the bout dancing around the Octagon and taunting Maia rather than actually engaging him. UFC president Dana White was furious and threatened to release Silva from the organization if he had similar antics in his next bout, which of course is this one. Silva has never been an underdog at Bodog’s Online Sportsbook during his 11-fight UFC career, and he is currently -525 against Sonnen after opening at -450, where he stayed until recently. Because Silva is usually so heavily favored, bettors tend to parlay him with other bouts to increase the payout of the wager. And that has been the case here, so even though Sonnen is getting the slight majority of action on the line we moved Silva to -525 after last week’s UFC on Versus 2 as 53% of all the parlays are still live after that event.

No. 1 middleweight contender Sonnen (24-10-1) is on a three-fight winning streak, the last victory coming at UFC 109 with a unanimous decision over Nate Marquardt. Sonnen’s last loss came to the same Maia whom Silva just toyed with. But Sonnen also beat Okami at UFC at 104 – in fairness, Silva didn’t technically get beaten by Okami (he has never officially lost in the Octagon) but was disqualified because of an illegal kick.

And Sonnen has been talking trash for months about Silva.

“I’ve beat the champion of every company except for the UFC,” said Sonnen, a very skilled wrestler who could have the advantage on the ground. “I’ve accomplished far more in this sport than Anderson Silva.”

And: “I just don’t like him. That’s it,” Sonnen said. “I don’t offer an apology and I don’t need to give an explanation. We can’t all get along. I’m going to take his belt on [Saturday] and Dana’s going to fire him on [Sunday].”

Silva, who has drawn some criticism in his career for lacking passion, has kept mostly quiet but promises to bring his “A game” on Saturday.

Sonnen is currently at +350, but he is getting approximately 55 percent of the handle to Silva’s 45 percent on the line on that fight; the main event is drawing better than 31.30 percent of the total betting handle for the entire UFC 117 card. Sonnen is used to being an underdog because he has been at Bodog in each of his four previous UFC fights and in six of his seven total fights offered at the site. But Sonnen has paid out nicely for players during his three-fight winning streak, going off at +375 against Marquardt, +250 against Okami and +185 vs. Dan Miller at UFC 98.

Of course Bodog will offer several props for UFC 117 – those will be available on Thursday. The “who will win Fight of the Night” generally is the most-bet prop with about 50 percent of the total prop action.

And as of this writing one of the undercard fights is actually seeing more total action than Silva-Sonnen if you throw out parlay action. That would be Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch, currently with Alves at Even and Fitch at -130. This bout accounts for 31.76 percent of the total card. Alves, who hasn’t fought since losing to Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100 last July, is getting 57.30 percent of the total handle. Alves (16-6-0) lost to Fitch via TKO back at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 5 in the summer of 2006. Fitch (22-3-0) hasn’t been beaten since also losing to St. Pierre, that at UFC 87 by unanimous decision. Because bettors seem to think should be a very competitive fight, it is drawing more two-sided action than Silva-Sonnen.

Inoki billed himself as ‘World Martial Arts Champion’ and would frequently face other high profile fighters in contests that are generally believed to have had a pre-determined outcome similar to professional wrestling. Inoki faced a ‘who’s who’ of the martial arts world, but none were more famous than heavyweight boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

There’s still much speculation about how Muhammad Ali came to fight Japanese wrestling legend Antonio Inoki, and even more uncertainty about what happened immediately before and during the fight. Ali took the booking because he thought it was to be a big paycheck for little work. Most accounts suggest that his handlers agreed to the ‘worked’ finish without his knowledge, and once he found out that he was to ‘take a dive’ he refused.

Many conspiracy theorists have noted that these rules were never announced to the crowd on fight night, leaving many with the impression that they were being made up as they went along. Action in the fight would further validate this view, but there actually were rules that both camps agreed to heading into the fight. Not surprisingly, most of these were designed to protect Ali. In fact, they were so one-sided that if Inoki hadn’t been so concerned about preserving his big payday he would have been justified in not fighting. Inoki was prohibited from punching with a closed fist or striking Ali in the head (ostensibly since he wasn’t wearing gloves). Inoki was prohibited from using any sort of submission maneuver. The most absurd limitation was that Inoki was prohibited from “grappling or trying to take Ali to the ground”. A few observers noted that this was like not letting Ali throw a jab.

The result was an absolutely horrible fight. Neither man showed much interest in engaging the other, with Inoki spending most of the time on the ground doing what he could under the one sided rules. Inoki threw kicks at Ali’s legs, Ali threw an occasional jab and tried to protect himself from his opponent’s leg strikes. The fight ended a 74-74 draw, with the real losers being the fans.

The fight was officiated by former pro wrestler “Judo” Gene Labell, a legendary tough guy considered at the time to be the ‘baddest man on the planet’. He could have easily beaten up both men, possibly at the same time. That might have provided some much needed entertainment to liven up the tedious charade masquerading as a fight.

After the fight, Inoki’s popularity in Japan was greater than ever. He became something of a hero for trying to fight despite having the rules so decidedly in his opponent’s favor. He’d continue his fights against other martial artists and remain one of the country’s most popular sports figures for years to come. His ‘worked’ martial arts matches can be credited with sparking later hybrid promotions showcasing pro wrestling and martial arts that evolved into PRIDE, RINGS and the major Japanese fight promotions of today.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer and respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and World Cup betting sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.