Did you hear the amount of applause Dan Henderson got at the World MMA Awards? Seems like everybody else loves him too. For those of you who are thinking I picked Hendo because of his Michael Bisping KO... well, that just solidified my reason. But face it - how many of us were watching Bisping circling to the left and just waiting for Danny to drop an overhand right? And then he did. Boom. Lights out, Bisping.

A lot of MMA fans got to know Henderson when he served as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter season nine. He was the one with the square head, big ears and fake front teeth. And I say that with love and respect, of course, because he acted like a father figure to those boys, and was also one of the only level-headed people throughout the whole season. Even while his fighters were engaging in feuds with Bisping (DaMarques Johnson's ongoing back-and-forth, and Cameron Dollar commenting that Bisping's legs looked like Band-Aids - which started a mini race war for the Brit), Hendo stayed back. The only time he really got in Mike's face was when he was being a... (cough, cough) moron (you don't want to know my real feelings)... about switching practice times with the American team. Hell, Hendo didn't even get mad when Bisping said that he was gonna out-wrestle him at UFC 100. So when Hendo dropped Bisping at UFC 100, did we all cheer? Of course we did. But in Bisping's defense, he did win his next fight pretty convincingly.

Even now that Henderson's fighting with Dana White, he's still got class about it. He even thanked Dana and the Fertittas during his acceptance speech at the World MMA Awards. And even after Dana publicly called him the ugliest fighter of the year and doctored his face onto a monkey - that's saying something - Henderson only hit back by calling Dana a female boxercising stalker. Now, I like both Dana and Dan very, very much... so... why can't we all just get along?

But this guy might be close to being a legend (although not with the UFC, clearly), so let's talk about what really makes him as good as he is. As a fighter, Hendo has a record of 25-7, and was the last title holder of Pride's middleweight and welterweight belts for a combined 32-and-a-half months. He has scored wins over Wanderlei Silva, Rich Franklin, Vitor Belfort, Renzo Gracie and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. And while his days were numbered with the UFC, he still remains to be the only man who ever took a round off Anderson Silva. But because Dana wasn't willing to pay Danny the money that he wanted - and probably a bunch of other inside reasons that we'll probably never know about - Danny never re-signed with the organization.

Now, most of you fans think that that was a bad move on Dana's part because you all liked Hendo. Oh, I've heard the insults towards Dana for this. A college business professor even said that it was a huge mistake to let Hendo go. We can only speculate how much money Danny asked for, but even after all of that negotiation, I still feel like they could have come to a resolution so that he could have stayed with the biggest MMA organization in the world. Dana, along with the Fertittas, built this company into a powerhouse - and we all have to love them for...