Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

Light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones neutralized his toughest opponent yet when he defeated former titleholder Rashad Evans early Sunday, but the next challenge won’t get easier.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Sunday confirmed that venerable star Dan Henderson will face Jones next. Henderson has been waiting for a title shot since beating ex-champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in a November slugfest that USA TODAY named a Fight of the Year.

Henderson can absorb and deliver powerful strikes, making him a formidable opponent for anyone. “Dan Henderson is an awesome opponent,” Jones says. “It’s just going to be a lot of things to conquer in this fight. He has extreme knockout power.”

Although Jones has never put anyone to sleep with a solo shot in a real fight, he knows a bit about smashing opponents to pieces. With a 6-foot-4 frame and UFC’s longest reach at 84½-inches, he has enough leverage and torque to deliver elbow strikes that have shattered facial bones.

He normally lands those fight-ending shots when he’s in top position on the ground. Jones gets there by relying on his roots in Greco-Roman wrestling to secure clinches that set up throws or trips.

But Henderson knows something about applying Greco-Roman work to mixed martial arts. The two-time Olympian, with Matt Lindland and Randy Couture, was a member of the original Team Quest trio that introduced the standing clinch tactics that have become as fundamental to mixed martial arts’ vocabulary as Brazilian jiu-jitsu’s techniques on the ground.

Henderson’s trademark in the last five years has been a powerful punch from the right side that has put away a litany of notable opponents across several weight classes, including three major ex-champions in Wanderlei Silva, Rafael Cavalcante and Fedor Emelianenko, as well as contender Michael Bisping.

Yet the clinch remains Henderson’s foundation. He sees it as a key to success against Jones.

“You’ve really got to get inside and fight with him and end up in the clinch with him a lot,” Henderson says. “Jones is better than most guys in the clinch. … (But) that’s where I’m most comfortable. At the same time I need to be real careful with catching one of those goofy elbows that he throws.”

The champion’s flamboyance with elbow strikes from odd angles offers one of many differences between his philosophy of combat and Henderson’s. They hardly could be further apart in their physical attributes, style and approach to fighting.

Jones has a tall, lanky body type that can pack on muscle. At age 24 and still a few years shy of his physical prime, he weighs 220 pounds or more except when shedding water to make the light-heavyweight division’s 205-pound limit the day before fights.

Henderson is so small that he carries fewer pounds than some welterweights on a normal day.

Rare techniques dance through Jones’ mind every day as he envisions fighting. He has spoken frequently of his insistence on creativity, which showed this weekend in his mixture of strikes from unusually long ranges.

“He looked pretty solid,” Henderson says. “He threw a lot of stuff that’s, I guess, typical of him. Unorthodox with some nasty elbows. A lot of kicks.”

Henderson, like former stablemates Lindland and Couture, embodies the blue-collar side of MMA.

Three years ago, when he was still training in central New York as a fighter with talent but still far from elite status, Jones saw little in c0mmon with the Team Quest founders. Jones told USA TODAYabout it in 2009:

“Their Greco’s a lot different than mine. They don’t execute a lot of throws. They just use their Greco tie-up just to maintain good positioning, or maybe to hold their opponents against the cage.

“I look at my clinch as a little more active clinch, where I’m always looking for takedowns or different angles or strikes and things, (so) I don’t really look to those guys for clinch knowledge. I think we have two different views on the clinch.”

For much of his 14 years at the top level of mixed martial arts, Henderson wore down foes with a grinding style that incorporates small punches and short elbows while leaning on them against the cage. Henderson employed the tactics so well that he neutralized larger men such as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to win points and earn a reputation as “Decision Dan.”

He shed the label later in his career as he realized his knockout power. But he doesn’t expect to rely solely on the right hand against Jones.

Trying to beat Jones without close-range tactics is a fruitless exercise, Henderson thinks.

“Rashad’s game should have been a little bit more mix it up from the outside and threaten more with takedowns and put Jones on his back,” Henderson says. “Rashad fought Jon Jones’ fight, not his own. … I definitely saw (openings) that Rashad should have capitalized on.”

Henderson, 41, wants to fight Jones in UFC’s July 7 show in Las Vegas, although the challenger views the date as a long-shot hope at best since it’s less than three months from now. Whenever it happens, Henderson sees an opportunity to cap off an MMA career few can match for breadth of accomplishment.

He has won one-night tournaments involving heavyweights and likely Hall of Famers in UFC and Rings. He captured titles in Pride Fighting Championships and Strikeforce. He remains the only man to hold major titles in two weight classes at the same time.

Those accolades make Henderson one of the few intriguing targets left at 205 pounds for Jones, who over the past 15 months has beaten four of the five active 205-pounders who have been UFC champions, as well as one of the top young prospects.

“I feel great that I already have a mission,” Jones says. “He’s a winner. He has a huge fanbase. I’m sure the haters will come right away, which I’m OK with.”

WRITTEN BY Sergio Non, USA TODAY & FULL STORY HERE