Henderson stops Edgar, snatches lightweight crown

MANILA, Philippines - Benson Henderson pulled off a unanimous decision over Frankie Edgar to snatch the lightweight title at the Ultimate Fighting Championship 144 at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan yesterday.

Henderson, who is riding the crest of three straight wins against Mark Bocek, Jim Miller and Clay Guida since jumping from the WEC to the UFC last year, won it in all three judges’ scorecards, 49-46, 49-46, 48-47, to claim the crown and improve to 16-2 (win-loss).

Edgar, who made his fourth title defense, dropped to 14-2-1 (win-loss-draw) and could get a re-match only after Henderson stakes his crown against an old familiar foe in Andrew Pettis, who knocked out Joe Lauzon in the first round earlier.

Fancied Yushin Okami succumbed to power-punching Tim Boetsch with a third round technical knockout loss that probably kissed his chances of another crack at the middleweight title goodbye.

Okami dropped to 26-6 and should be out of the title radar.

Okami owns the distinction of dealing reigning middleweight titlist Anderson “The Spider” Silva, considered the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in mixed martial arts today, six years ago before getting whipped by the latter in their re-match at UFC 134 last year.

Okami also dealt Mark “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” Muñoz his only loss as a middleweight and would have set up a re-match if he hadn’t lost.

It turned out that Muñoz, who was a recent Manila visitor, will need to take on another fighter, perhaps Boetsch or Michael “The Count” Bisping.

In the light heavyweight battle, Ryan Bader bested former champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who played BA Barracus in the movie remake of old televsion The A Team, via unanimous decision after getting a 30-27 score in all cards.

Other results saw Mark Hunt defeating Cheick Kongo in the first round, Jake Shields pulling off a unanimous decision win over Yoshihiro Akiyama (30-27 x 3) and Hatsu Hioki winning by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) over Bart Palaszewski.

In the undercards, Issei Tamura knocked out Tiequan Zhang in the first round (0.32), Chris Cariaso won via unanimous decision over Takeya Mizugaki (29-28, 29-28, 29-28), Riki Fukuda triumphing also via unanimous decision over Steve Cantwell (29-28, 30-27, 30-27), Vuaghan Lee winning via submission (arm bar) in the first round over Norifumi Yamamoto and Takanori Gomi knocking out Eiji Mitsuoka in the second round.