When Joe Henderson had a microphone in his hand, both before and after the fight, he didn’t give the best account of himself. However in the cage, during the fight, that’s where he did the real talking. After taking the fight on just eight days notice he absolutely dominated Ally Law from start to finish, coming close to ending the fight on a couple of different occasions.
The Newcastle crowd was firmly behind Ally Law coming into this fight, with chants of ‘Ally’ ringing through the arena multiple times both on his way to the cage and throughout the fight.
The bout started fast, with Henderson throwing kicks and sending Ally to the mat with a knockdown. Law would quickly recover, with both men proceeding to throw some heavy shots, none of which landed. The pair would clinch, with Henderson pulling guard and managing to lock in an incredibly deep guillotine.
He would hold Law in that position for close to a minute, cutting off the circulation and airflow. If he had managed to lock his legs around Law, chances are he wouldn’t have been able to escape. However with the full support of the arena behind him, Ally Law managed to break free of the hold and survive into the second round.
There was a rather strange moment towards the end of the round, in which the referee called time and began to talk to both fighters, though there was no obvious reason as to why he did so. Then as the pair resumed fighting, the bell rang, which seemed to catch all three men in the cage by surprise as the fighting continued for a few additional seconds.
Ally Law dominated from start to finish
There were some wild exchanges to start the second round, however it didn’t take long for Henderson to push Ally up against the cage. Law would attempt a submission, but Henderson would manage to break free and take his opponent down to the mat. From there would unfold one of the weirdest grappling exchanges that I have ever seen.
Henderson would work his way into full mount, not doing much while Ally would attack from the bottom. After a short while Law would begin to try and work his way out of the position, lifting his legs up to the point that his knees were essentially resting on Henderson’s shoulders, which ended up with Henderson sitting on Law’s face… I really don’t know any other way to try and explain it.
Somehow, from this utterly bizarre position, Ally Law managed to shrug his opponent off and get back to his feet. There were some exchanges to end the round, but it was comfortably Henderson’s fight at this point.
Heading into round three it became obvious that Law was tiring. There would be a few exchanges before Ally would attempt a spinning backfist, which missed, the pair would end up against the cage. Ally would seem to collapse with exhaustion, leading Henderson to once again end up on top of the smaller man, there were some attempts at manoeuvring on the ground and Henderson would attempt an armbar in he closing seconds of the round, not quite managing to lock it in, though it seems he may have been able to if the fight had gone on for a little longer.
It was announced in the cage that Henderson had would by majority decision, which seems to be FAME’s way of saying it was a unanimous decision. Regardless, the result wasn’t entirely surprising to those that watched the fight, however it was an impressive victory for a man that only had eight days to prepare and didn’t know how many rounds he was fighting.
After the fight Law would congratulate his opponent, before going on to say that he would like to step back into the cage a second time to take on his originally scheduled opponent, Nightscape. It would be an interesting fight, but not one that I’m entirely sure will happen.
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