Henderson doesn’t want to leave the UFC

I get the feeling that Dana White is playing some gamesmanship when it comes to Dan Henderson. I touched on this briefly last week when the story broke that Henderson might be signing with Strikeforce as a result of a breakdown in contract negotiations with the UFC. It was the UFC president who let slip that there was trouble and that money was at the center of it.

The former PRIDE FC champ has gone on the record saying that he has no plans to fight anywhere other than the UFC and that he wants to end his career with the promotion. He recently told HDNet’s Inside MMA, “I don’t plan on fighting anywhere else. It never even entered my mind that I’d be anywhere else. It’s just something myself, Dana and the other guys over there at the UFC, we need to sit down and figure it out for my next fight.”

So if that’s the case, why would White start talking like he’d already lost Henderson to a rival organization? I can only imagine it’s to put pressure on Henderson (and his management) to roll over and accept the UFC’s offer, give him a little scare by showing that the UFC is willing to let Henderson go to a rival organization.