Despite “frustrating” decision loss to Bisping, Dan Henderson has no plans to return to the cage

Last October, a 47-year-old Dan Henderson very nearly captured the UFC middleweight title in his retirement fight, as he lost an extremely controversial unanimous decision to champ Michael Bisping.

Now some six months removed from this disappointing retirement fight, Henderson recently told MMAFighting.com that he’s still got a bad taste in his mouth from it.

“Obviously it’s a little frustrating and bums me out,” Henderson said. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth with how I went out. I felt that I should have won that fight and retired as champion. I don’t dwell on things like that. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking that I got f*cked. But it’s a little frustrating. I don’t think a day goes by where somebody doesn’t bring it up, unfortunately. It was what it was. I can move on, but I felt that I beat him up and he didn’t do anything to me, so why should he have won?”

While Henderson is clearly disappointed with the outcome of his fight with Bisping, however, he explained that he has no plans to return to the cage – so it looks like he won’t be joining Vitor Belfort’s ‘legends league.’

“No, I don’t have any itch [to return],” he said. “It was enough time, 20 years of doing [MMA]. If I had the itch, I’d go to the gym, spar with my guys, and I’ll be dead for the rest of the day. And that will get rid of the itch.”

Highlights of Henderson’s legendary career include defeats of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Renzo Gracie, Vitor Belfort, Wanderlei Silva, Rich Franklin, Fedor Emelianenko, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Hector Lombard, and perhaps most notably, a brutal 2009 knockout of Bisping.

How did you score Dan Henderson’s October battle with Michael Bisping? Sound off, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/2/2017.