(While 406 votes may not seem that significant, first consider that this screenshot was taken within an hour of the poll’s creation, and all 111 votes for Dana White were placed by one person. You know who.)

UFC 152 is still three days away, yet I already feel something churning within the deepest regions of my stomach, something I haven’t felt in quite some time when dealing with a UFC card: Excitement. Maybe even nervousness. While at least some of the mixed emotion can be attributed to a few names featured on the card that I always like to watch throw down (specifically: Stann, Belfort, Benavidez, and Hettes), I can’t help but feel as if the main source of my excitement is completely disconnected from the card itself, as if any card could bring me this kind of joy. I feel like I did in the days before a UFC event four or five years ago, and I guarantee that a good percentage of you are feeling it too.

And I imagine you know why you’re feeling it. It’s because the cancellation of UFC 151 was responsible for the largest gap between UFC cards in nearly two years, and was ultimately a good move by the UFC.

At the risk of retreading old ground, I’ll admit that I was quick to throw haterade on Jon Jones for his decision to not fight Chael Sonnen in the days that followed it, and still feel a little disdain toward the champ for doing so. But now that I’ve had some time to digest the situation in its entirety, I’ve come to at least appreciate both Jones’ and the UFC’s decision — as conflicting as it is to say so — and here are the main reasons why.

Via none other than the bossman’s Twitter account, here is the funniest thing you will see all day. I’m going to go as far as to say that it completely negates the fact that we were deprived of a pay-per-view oh so long ago. Then again, it’s Friday, and I’m already drunk. Have a great weekend, Potato Nation!

-J. Jones

For an event that was to be headlined by two of the sports all-time greats, and a supporting cast that was pretty much garbage-ass, it’s disappointing that tonight you have no PPV to watch, no excuse to spend even more time at Hooters, and no good reason not to attend the wedding your girlfriend has been nagging you about going to. But if you thought that was going to stop us from milking this thing for everything its got, you are severely wrong, my friend.

Taking the reigns tonight is longtime CagePotato contributor/Twitter pseudo celebrity Jason Moles. This card will either be a smashing success thanks to the main event or a failure of epic proportions thanks to everything else. Stick around, insult him in the comments section, and be sure to tell all of your friends about the only UFC 151 liveblog on the internet (EVER!) can be found. Now let’s get to it.

(Henderson, at the exact moment in his career he realized he could’ve had a V8.) 

Had he known that his knee injury would ultimately play a role in one of the most embarrasing moments in MMA history not involving Ken Shamrock [Author's note: Now THAT is how you make shameless plugs flow with the context of your article.], we’re sure Dan Henderson and his camp would have done things much, much differently. But be that as it may, you might be surprised to learn that Hendo actually injured his knee some three weeks ago, but simply didn’t have the heart to admit defeat until his final day of sparring. FightersOnly has the scoop, via Hendo’s coach, Daniel Woirin:

Dan Henderson got hurt three weeks ago during sparring when he went to defend a takedown and for a while he has to be away from training, for two to three weeks. It was very difficult for him to refuse the fight. All the team had to convince him not to do it. 

We did a final sparring yesterday to evaluate his condition and he really didn’t have the chance to fight with Jones. It is so depressing for everybody. Many things are involved in a high-level fight like this one, but unfortunately, this happened. 

Now, where the Hendo/Amurica fan in me wants to simply chalk this up as a classic case of a 41 year-old man being stubborn (I imagine Hendo said something along the lines of “them book-reading doctor pussies ain’t gonna tell me what to do” at one point), I simply can’t overlook the fact that Dan’s camp made a huge mistake in waiting until the very last minute to pull out of the fight.

WAIT, WAIT, DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON ME! I’M NOT DOUBTING HENDO. JON JONES IS AN A-HOLE. ARE WE COOL AGAIN?

(Who wants to take a wild guess at how Bones vs. Belfort will end? Anyone?)

There may only be a matter of hours separating us from the UFC/Dana White/Jon Jones’ decision to cancel Christmas UFC 151, yet it somehow feels as if every conceivable angle has already been pondered, publicized, and pettifogged to an exhausting extent. Fingers have been pointed in every direction; some say Jon Jones is to blame, some Greg Jackson, while others, like Cory Braiterman of MMAMania, feel that Dana White is more or less scapegoating Bones in an attempt to disguise the fact that UFC 151′s supporting card, and in fact many of the UFC’s recent cards, are kind of garbage ass, as BG put it (by the way, garbage ass is phrase that needs to catch on).

Throw in a clusterfuck of bitchassness in the light heavyweight contender pool, and we’ve been left with a “pound-for-pound great” fighting a middleweight whose chance of victory is apparently worse than the chance that you would be attacked by a circus lion in a convenient store twice. On the same day. In two different convenience stores. Seriously, Jones was only listed at -475 in a rematch with Lyoto Machida, and is now listed as high as -1500 over Belfort.

That is some garbage ass, right there.

But the man who has been caught in the middle of all this hate, champion Jon Jones, had remained silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath, likely until Team Jackson could draft up an apology for him to make (ZING!). However, in an interview with MMAJunkie last night, Jones was both apologetic and steadfast regarding his decision.

His remarks, along with the latest in Chael Sonnen’s epic trolljob, are after the jump. 

(Suddenly, the decision to sponsor this guy seems like not so great of an idea.) 

Boy oh boy, have the events of this afternoon trapped everyone in a glass case of emotion or what? We’re going to forgo the typical “aftermath” aspect of this…aftermath, because suffice it to say, you are already aware of what has gone down. Looking ahead, it appears Jon Jones will be facing Lyoto Machida (again) at UFC 152 in Toronto (again). It also appears that all of the claims that “Lyoto TOTALLY won a round against Bones, you guys” — as if he, you know, didn’t get sliced open and choked unconscious shortly thereafter — have had some effect on the bookies. At least for now.

BestFightOdds currently has Jones listed between -475 and -485 for his rematch with “The Dragon,” which is actually not as bad (for Machida, at least) as the -600 Jones was listed at when these two first squared off. Who knows how far that number will sway in the next few weeks, but we’re guessing it will only increase in Jones’ favor as time passes.

But that’s not the story here. The real story is that, due to the cancellation of UFC 151, a lot of fighters are getting royally screwed. Sure, the UFC could reimburse them with their show money (as if they’re not losing a shitload of it already), but these fighters rely on sponsorship money to truly put them in the green. That money has seemingly dissapeared, and man are they pissed about it. After all, when you only fight a few times a year (at best) for next-to-nothing, missing a fight can have serious financial consequences. And the poor saps who will now be missing another paycheck are letting Jones have it on Twitter.

The best responses are after the jump.