After Dan Henderson returned on winning track last Saturday with a crushing knockout victory over Tim Boetsch, Tim Kennedy took to Twitter to congratulate him. It wasn’t just a nice gesture between fellow middleweights though. Together with his good wishes, Kennedy sent out a proposal to the 44-year old MMA veteran and UFC president Dana White: to revive the UFC Fight for the Troops format and battle Henderson in the main event.
See the Tweet here:
Fight for the Troops was a special UFC Fight Night format, that took place on US military bases and was designed to raise money for American war veterans. Three editions have been held so far, the last one in 2013, headlined by Kennedy, who stopped Rafael Natal by first-round knockout.
The matchup against Henderson would actually make a lot of sense. In the autumn of his career, and with only two wins in his last seven fights, “Hendo” is far away from fighting for a UFC title and might even have saved his job with Saturday’s win. Yet, he is still a big enough name to headline any UFC Fight Night card. However, there are few names in the UFC’s middleweight rankings, he hasn’t already fought. Tim Kennedy is one of them.
We haven’t seen Kennedy since a controversial fight against Yoel Romero last year. It’s where the Cuban-born wrestling standout stayed in his corner nearly half a minute too long after being saved by the bell, only to recover and return to finish Kennedy via TKO.
The UFC has yet to announce any plans of putting on another Fight for the Troops event in the future.