Michael Bisping News

Tom Taylor - January 14, 2018

If things had gone according to the original plan, MMA legend Vitor Belfort would compete in the final fight of his illustrious MMA career this very evening, as he was scheduled to battle Uriah Hall in the co-main event of the UFC’s anticipated debut in St. Louis. Regrettably, Hall was hospitalized in the midst of his weight cut, which of course meant that Belfort’s retirement fight was put on ice. Luckily, it seems that the Brazilian legend already has a new date for his retirement fight. According to a report from Combate, Belfort will battle Michael Bisping when the UFC touches down in London on March 17. The expectation is that this bout will also be Bisping’s retirement fight.

Justin Golightly - January 6, 2018

Michael Bisping’s 2017 was a roller coaster ride. He got a well-deserved huge money fight with Georges St-Pierre, but ended up on the wrong end of a choke. After losing his title, he jumped into a fight with Kelvin Gastelum with a super quick turnaround and was finished in the first round. He’ll look to come into 2018 to turn that all around with one last fight before he walks away from the sport. He’s had offers from a handful of fighters looking to build off his name in the big moment, Brad Tavares being the latest to challenge the former UFC middleweight champion. What’s up @bisping I know you’re looking for a fight in England. Respectfully, I would like to share the octagon with you, and show the English fans how Hawaiians get down!!! @danawhite @Mickmaynard2 @ufc

Tom Taylor - December 27, 2017

Over the years, former UFC middleweight champ Michael Bisping has swapped trash talk with many of his peers. One of the latest fighters he’s engaged with is current UFC welterweight contender Jorge Masvidal.  Recently, however, Bisping made an effort to end this beef, after a heated exchanged on Instagram.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Georges St-Pierre waltzed into the UFC after being out for four years and added another ridiculous accomplishment to his career by taking the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping. It was a gigantic moment, but UFC 217 somehow seems like a distant memory now, especially after he dropped the title only a month later due to his health issues. As the combat sports year starts to close, Bisping reflects on the controversial aftermath of St-Pierre’s win. The former champ still thinks he’s a prick, but concedes that it was actually a really smart move. “[Georges St-Pierre]’s a prick. He’s a prick, god bless him. I’m gonna be brutally honest here, [him vacating the title is] a double-edged sword. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. By the way, Dana White threw me under the bus when he first found out. He wasn’t happy with Georges and he said, ‘Yeah, well he cherry-picked Bisping.’ That doesn’t do me any favors! He didn’t cherry-pick me, but I did say that. I said Georges wanted to fight me because he thought I was an easy fight and this and that, and he got the win, and then he vacated the belt. Now he vacated the belt because apparently he had to go to the hospital after our fight and he thought he was gonna be paralyzed and he had a bad neck and all this type of stuff. I don’t know. He just doesn’t fancy doing it again.”

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

Just last week, Georges St-Pierre vacated his freshly won UFC middleweight title, directly promoting Robert Whittaker’s fight with Luke Rockhold in Perth for the undisputed belt. It was the fallout from his UFC 217 health scare that led to his decision. St-Pierre basically tortured himself to move up a division, which culminated in a ulcerative colitis diagnosis. It became so bad, the fight was almost called off. Now John Danaher admits he even though St-Pierre would lose in his impaired state. “Halfway through this camp we knew there was something very seriously wrong. There was a point where we lost a week and a half of training. Even the day of the [Michael Bisping] fight, [Georges St-Pierre] was dealing with serious medical problems. I’m not going to lie to you, two weeks out I had a talk with Firas Zahabi and I said that the St-Pierre I saw train today gets knocked out by Michael Bisping. He did exactly what the plan was designed to do. He finished the fight with a beautiful strike setting up a submission hold. […] And he did it on a man above him in weight class. What made it all the more impressive if he did this with all the health problems he was dealing with.”

Justin Golightly - December 7, 2017

After Georges St-Pierre finished Michael Bisping, the former middleweight champion was eager for a quick turnarond against Kelvin Gastelum. It didn’t end up the way Bisping wanted it, also putting the UFC under fire for letting it happen. Bisping himself has recently opened up and admitted it might not have been a good move, but that he has no regrets. Georges St-Pierre spoke about the fight and displayed a lot of respect to his last opponent, but wasn’t happy with the UFC either. “Medically, [Michael Bisping fighting Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Shanghai] was not the right thing to do. However, if he would have succeeded – you know, he took a big risk and me, I can accept that because he took a big risk – if he would have succeeded he would have been like a hero. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, he just lose the title and then he come back with no preparation, boom, wins a fight.’ I think he tried to do something that was very, very risky, but at the same time if he would have achieved it, it would have been a big reward for him. So I can respect that. For him, I can respect the idea that he had, the goal that he had doing it.”

Justin Golightly - December 6, 2017

We all know how the story went. Michael Bisping tore up Georges St-Pierre in the former welterweight king’s triumphant return to the UFC, but in the end Bisping was submitted and lost his middleweight title. Eager to get the bad taste of a loss out of his mouth, he accepted a short-notice fight against Kelvin Gastelum and got knocked out. The former champ hasn’t shied away from the spotlight since his back-t0-back losses, but his latest podcast is the most in-depth he’s talked about what went down. In hindsight, the man admits it may have been the wrong move. “It didn’t go my way, as everybody knows and saw. I felt great going into that fight, I did. Looking back in hindsight, was I overtrained and emotionally and physically tired? Yes I was, but the problem with having a f-cking huge ego and thinking you can still beat people is that I knew that but I still thought I could beat Kelvin Gastelum. Not taking anything away from him. He caught me with a beautiful left hook that put me down. God bless him. It was a big gamble, it didn’t pay off. Had it paid off it would have been great but that’s what you do. You roll the dice, you give it a shot, and you hope for the best, and the best man, I guess that was Kelvin so well done to him. “That fight was me trying to exorcise some inner demons and try and get back in the win column ASAP. As I said, it was a huge gamble and for many reasons it was the wrong move, but I don’t regret it. If you look at the grand scheme of things […] I can see that it was the wrong move, but at the time it felt right, so I don’t regret it.”

Tom Taylor - December 5, 2017

Former UFC middleweight champ Michael Bisping lost twice in November: first, to Georges St-Pierre, which marked the end of his title reign, then to Kelvin Gastelum, who knocked him out just weeks after his concussive loss to St-Pierre. In the wake of these losses, Bisping’s long-time coach Jason Parillo believes it might be time for Bisping to think about hanging up the gloves, and plans to have a conversation with him to that end.

Chris Taylor - November 26, 2017

Joe Rogan criticizes the UFC’s decision to let Michael Bisping fight against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Shanghai. Just three weeks after being put to sleep by Georges St-Pierre in the main event of UFC 217, former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping was back in action against Kelvin Gastelum this past Saturday in China.

Chris Taylor - November 26, 2017

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping suffered his second stoppage loss in just three weeks at yesterday’s UFC event in Shanghai, China. After being put to sleep by Georges St-Pierre in the main event of UFC 217 on November 4, “The Count” decided to make a quick turnaround and accepted a short-notice fight with Kelvin Gastelum for November 25.

Chris Taylor - November 25, 2017

Michael Bisping suffered his second stoppage loss in the past three weeks earlier today at UFC Fight Night 122 in Shanghai, China. “The Count” took on surging division contender Kelvin Gastelum in today’s main event but unfortunately lost the contest via first-round knockout.

Chris Taylor - November 25, 2017

Ben Askren put the Ultimate Fighting Championship on blast for allowing Michael Bisping to co-headline today’s UFC Fight Night 122 event in Shanghai, China. Askren took to Twitter shortly following Bisping’s brutal first-round knockout loss to Kelvin Gastelum where he proceeded to criticize the UFC’s decision to let “The Count” fight just “3 weeks after being concussed”.

Justin Golightly - November 25, 2017

While most of us slept off our second helping of Thanksgiving, Kelvin Gastelum was in Shanghai, China earning the biggest win of his entire career. It only took him a single round to take out Michael Bisping, who was coming off a super quick turnaround from UFC 217’s loss to Georges St-Pierre. Gastelum wasted no time at all declaring exactly what he wanted this win to propel him towards: The UFC middleweight title. With St-Pierre’s next fight up in the air, Gastelum set his sights on a fight with Robert Whittaker in Perth. Flush.#UFCShanghai pic.twitter.com/10gMesZuwB

Justin Golightly - November 25, 2017

Brutal. pic.twitter.com/BORuBEyjdw — FloCombat (@FloCombat) November 25, 2017

Justin Golightly - November 24, 2017

Today at the weigh-ins for UFC Shanghai, Kelvin Gastelum missed weight on his first attempt. Don’t worry, he was able to weigh at 186lbs for his middleweight fight with Michael Bisping tomorrow on his second trip to the scale. However, it’s ironically not the weight that everyone is focused on. We aren’t passing any judgments, but unless it’s some sort of optical illusion, Kelvin Gastelum seems to have grabbed onto the towel on his initial attempt and tugged at it. He still missed weight by a pound so it doesn’t even matter, but still, it looked like he was taking a page out of Daniel Cormier’s book.

Adam Conklin - November 20, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxR6HI70Wxk Before former middleweight champion Michael Bisping captured UFC gold, he was working his way up the ladder like he did so many times before. On that road, Bisping met almost everyone of note in the upper-echleon division, including prolific striker Cung Le.

Justin Golightly - November 18, 2017

Kelvin Gastelum was originally supposed to fight the legend Anderson Silva in the main even of UFC Shanghai, but Silva’s flagging by USADA took away that opportunity. Luckily, perhaps an even more high profile match-up landed in Gastelum’s lap. Michael Bisping wanted to bounce right back from his loss to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217, so he offered to step up short notice against the middleweight contender. Gastelum feels like a possible win over Bisping could finally get him close to the gold belt. “Yes. If I win this fight [with Michael Bisping], it will put me up high in the rankings and hopefully in the conversations to fight for the title. That’s ultimately my goal. I feel like if I win this fight then I might have tarnished those plans and I might’ve just permanently put myself in the position where I’ll be fighting for the middleweight title. If I get to fight for the middleweight title, then that’s ideal but I also feel like if I do the right things and I’m able to make the 170 safely and healthy, then I can do it and I want to fight for that title too.” — Kelvin Gastelum speaking on the UFC Shanghai conference call. 

Justin Golightly - November 18, 2017

Jorge Masvidal does not like Michael Bisping. Like, at all. It’s not just the trash talk that gets under Masvidal’s skin, whatever bad feelings he may have had toward the former UFC middleweight champion were magnified tenfold after Bisping desecrated the Cuban flag cageside. Combined with his friendship with Yoel Romero, this makes any situation volatile, as we saw when the two nearly came to blows recently. It’s all those reasons why Masvidal is willing to fight Bisping as a replacement if somehow Kelvin Gastelum can’t make it. “I think if Kelvin Gastelum doesn’t make weight, I’ll step right in. That’s what I like to do. I like to fight, so if that happens, if you know, I’m going to be praying that Gastelum eats too much dessert or something. I think [Michael] Bisping will win. Even though I don’t like him too much as a person, I think Bisping will win. Me personally, I just don’t like Bisping because we’ve had problems in real life, I just don’t like. If I could fight him in the Whole Foods parking lot I would. Any Aussie super market. I would fight that guy for a parking spot, that’s how much I don’t like him.” — Jorge Masvidal speaking at the UFC Sydney Q & A.