Ode to Michael Bisping
Michael Bisping is a divisive figure in Mixed Martial Arts, many fighters see him as the pure spirit of martial arts, the code of honour and discipline that had led to possibly the most unlikely title win in the history of the UFC. However, many fans remember his ugly actions such as spitting at Jorge Rivera and generally just being a trash-talking heel. The fighter has retired after twelve years in the UFC and a career in MMA which lasted fourteen years and thirty nine fights. It seems fitting to look at the legacy and impact of a trailblazer for UK MMA.
Before Bisping was a talented Mixed Martial Artist, he had worked many different dead-end jobs as he tried to build a living for his wife and his young family. He disliked the life he led, he felt that he was not providing for children and a colleague of Bisping prompted some deep thought. Michael Bisping was one of the best young Japanese Jujitsu practitioners in the country, a common story told by Michael is that his father drove him down to Nottingham every single week so him and his brother, Konrad could practice BJJ. He lost interest in Mixed Martial Arts at the age of sixteen when he found one of his passions at the time, DJing parties. Michael became deep into hip-hop and DJing and ended up working as a carpet-fitter, labourer and factory worker. It seemed that his martial arts passion was put on hold until HE HAD children.
Bisping realised that he had the potential to be a brilliant fighter, he had the temperament to do so, the need to get in the gym and put in the hard yards. He quit his job and reunited with his old coach, a Vale Tudo specialist. Vale Tudo is the Brazilian precursor to modern day MMA and Bisping learnt this style while supplementing his training with trips to Nottingham for BJJ and Burnley for boxing. The additions to his game along with his kickboxing past and insane cardio meant that Clitheroe had a serious fighter on their hands but nobody realised how good Michael was until he began tearing through the UK scene.
In his first two fights, he dominated the competition winning both fights in the first round before he was matched up with the Cage Rage champion, Mark ‘The Beast’ Epstein. He won the fight easily and the rematch easily as well. From 2004 to the end of 2005, he held every single major belt in Britain, ‘The Count’ was Clitheroe was unstoppable. He had technical striking and the type of cardio which constantly pressured opponents, it was a nightmare matchup for some of the more plodding fighters at light-heavyweight. He had gone 10–0 and many in Britain believed that Michael could be the best in his division worldwide but he was still flat broke and was struggling to make ends meet. His wife’s income was not enough to cover Bisping’s training costs and he was getting paid peanuts for winning everything on the regional scene. He needed an opportunity and the dream came in the form of TUF.
The Ultimate Fighter was a respected competition in which serious prospects fought to get into before all of the fake drama and beefs that runied the purpose of the show. The first few seasons of TUF were huge for the UFC in terms of reaching a casual audience and growing the profile of the brand. It was also huge for fighters as it gave them a chance to earn real money that could be used to live a comfortable life. The show had been restricted to the US but TUF3 held international auditions and had a training session in Manchester. It was perfect for the Clitheroe-based talent and it gave him a real chance of making The Ultimate Fighter.
In Bisping’s own words, anybody he saw in the gym, he had ‘already beaten them in the first round’ and with his personality he appealed to Dana White. Dana had been looking for the star who could drive product in Europe and tap into a market where there was many regional firms like Cage Rage or Cage Warriors but not one premier promotion. In Bisping, he had a person who could do that both with his action-style of fighting and his witty personality.
Before TUF3, Michael Bisping had never been outside of Europe and now he headed to Las Vegas to live and train with other talented fighters. He was one of the only Brits in the group, the other being Ross Pointon. These two men broke ground for UKMMA as it signified that the scene had talent that could hang with the Americans who dominated MMA at the time. In the UFC, the majority of champions were North American, names like Rich Franklin, BJ Penn and Matt Hughes were household names in MMA. There had been no household name for Britain, Bisping was the first with his displays on the Ultimate Fighter.
He was fast and dynamic for a light-heavweight, he was seemingly in a different class compared to the competition and earnt that $100,000 contract which set his family on the road to prosperity. The money did not flow into Michael’s bank account instantly, to get the dollars he had to fight. His first fight in the UFC was five months after he won TUF, he was still scraping by as his wife, Rebecca supported their young family.
It was UFC 66, on the undercard of the Tito-Chuck Liddell fight that Michael began to make his name known in wider circles. He quickly knocked out Eric Schafer and finally his dream of providing a better life for his family was realised. He earned a cash bonus of $50,000, tax-free for knocking out Schafer. From that point onwards, it seemed easy for Bisping, he won the next two fights before dropping a close split decision to Rashad Evans, a future light-heavyweight champion. It was at this point, Michael came to realise that he was working hard and smart in training but he was in the wrong class. Dana White had previously warned that Bisping was too small and Michael saw this first-hand when he saw Rashad cutting weight in the sauna while he was ‘drinking Sprite and eating Chinese’.
He went down to middleweight and was unstoppable, the lower weight meant Michael could unleash his game a little more, he did not have to worry about conserving energy and could volume-strike. He put together a three-fight win streak before he was matched up in the biggest fight of his career, Dan Henderson at UFC 100. He was 17–1 and a rising star, Dan Henderson was the guy who had already been there and done it all, it was a tough fight before all of the bad blood that had emerged during the fight build-up between Bisping and Henderson.
UFC 100 was the biggest UFC card ever and possibly the greatest card of all-time, it was stacked with fighters like Brock Lesnar, GSP, Jon Fitch and a rising light-heavyweight fighter called Jon Jones. On the largest stage, it all went wrong for Bisping, he seemed emotional during the fight, the rage he built up to fight Dan Henderson was overwhelming. He had also over-trained to the point where he was gaunt and weak, it was a deadly combination. Michael fell into Dan’s fight, trading punches at range, he circled to left and was destroyed with a thunderous punch. He was out on the floor before Dan Henderson dropped an elbow on Bisping with all of his weight. It was no ordinary knockout, it was hellacious.
The rising star who had spent four years building himself up in the UFC had been knocked down to ground zero. The haters came out in force saying that Bisping was an imposter and a fake. Most fighters take time to understand that type of knockout, psychologically it can break a fighter and they are never the same. For Bisping it was the opposite, his father Jan said that he simply ‘moved on and began talking about his next fight’. The effects of the haters also motivated Bisping, he wanted to prove the doubters wrong.
His next fight against Dennis Kang was at home in Manchester, one of the first fights in Manchester for the UFC. The other key legacy of Bisping is that he raised awareness about a sport that was seen as barbaric in Britain. This slightly mouthy lad from the North-West was the perfect ambassador for British media to get behind and for people to learn about MMA. His influence on the UK scene is undeniable, he brought the UFC to the UK on a regular basis, he paved the way for British fighters like Dan Hardy and Paul Daley to get into the UFC and build careers.
But in Manchester, in front of his fans, his main concern was rebuilding his career. He beat Dennis Kang in front of raucous crowd and felt the love of the nation as he stood in the cage after demolishing Kang. It gave him the confidence to fight and Michael Bisping went back to being Michael Bisping, the same mouthy fighter from Clitheroe. The Kang win was a precursor to a difficult part of his career in which there was much change.
On a personal front, Michael had uprooted his family from all he had known to move to Orange County in California so that they could enjoy a better life and so he could have better training partners. In terms of his career, it became difficult and emotionally draining. Michael would lose a title eliminator against Wanderlei Silva, the former PRIDE champion before again building himself up with a four-fight win streak against named guys like Sexyama, Jorge Rivera and Jason Miller. This pattern kept on happening, Michael would seemingly beat anybody but in title eliminators, he would lose in heart-breaking fashion. Dan Hardy put it at best, he was ‘never outstruck or outfought’, it just seemed that years into his UFC career Bisping would never be the champion that Dana White saw all of those years ago. In 2013, he had a title eliminator against Vitor Belfort which would change his life and career permanently.
Vitor Belfort is known for using PEDS and it was likely that in his fight against Michael Bisping, he was juiced to the gills. It was a close fight on paper, Belfort was a high-level fighter who had previously held gold, Michael Bisping was the same guy albeit not in the UFC. Michael was again distracted and mentally not right, he was everywhere but not in the cage and it cost Bisping massively. Belfort landed a huge head-kick on the corner of Bisping’s eye which knocked him out and crippled his sight. To this day, Bisping cannot see out of that eye and he can only see out of one eye that is now ailing. It was seemingly the end of Michael Bisping, many people expected him to retire from a career-threatening injury.
For Michael, it was not the end, he still believed that he could be a champion despite the many setbacks and issues that he struggled through. He spent a whole year recovering from his injuries properly especially when the mistakes in surgery were considered. This is a big part of Michael Bisping’s legacy, his ability to overcome obstacles and persevere through issues, he was ‘never say die’ until the very end. Eight years after Bisping’s UFC debut, a marathon stint considering that many MMA fighters struggle to stay in contention for the length of their career. Most fighters drop off after five years whether it be due to injuries, ailing athleticism or a lack of hunger. It is a mark of a champion to keep going at such a high-level, Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz are both examples of champions who had extended periods of dominance.
In Macau, the first UFC event in Macau with the first ever headliner of Asian descent Cung Le, Bisping put on a fight for the ages. His volume-striking, the ‘bread and butter’ took Cung Le out of his rhythm and prevented the dynamic striking of Cung Le from becoming a factor. In many ways, it was a fight for his career, a fight to stay relevant and establish the next challenger. He beat Cung Le and was back on the rise with a bad-blood rivalry that he managed to talk himself into.
In 2014, Luke Rockhold was the unstoppable force heading towards the immovable object in the form of Chris Weidman. Rockhold had serious pedigree, he was a former Strikeforce middleweight champion, he was the future in a division full of battle-worn fighers. Rockhold and Bisping had one of the best rivalries in current years due to the personality of both men. Rockhold and Bisping are both hugely competitive and want the last word, it was clear from their press conferences in Australia that both men did not like each other. Michael’s legacy would have been cemented provided he beat Rockhold in Australia, he would have finally made it to the mountain-top and his career would have to be respected. It was the ideal outcome for Bisping and the pressure was on for the fighter who had so many setbacks and only have a few years left at maximum. Bisping had suffered so much punishment and heart-ache, many pundits saw it to be his last chance to get a title fight.
Unfortunately, Bisping’s ideal reality did not happen and the same-old Michael Bisping came out to fight. He seemed tentative and distracted, Rockhold did not seem to command his full attention. Mentally, Michael was not and it cost him. He got dropped by Rockhold before being submitted by his younger, more athletic rival. It seemed that there was a shift in the division at this point, the last of the old guard had fallen and younger fighters like Luke Rockhold and Robert Whittaker were going to take over the top of the division for years to come. Michael Bisping was seemingly out of the title picture, Vitor Belfort was a shell of himself without the steroids and Lyoto Machida was a little bit chinny.
The doubt was there in his mind, Dan Hardy remarked that ‘he could see the doubt in Michael’s eyes’. It was different to cope with that of kind loss, a bad-blood match-up that Michael was submitted in and possibly lost his last chance to achieve the ultimate glory. Bisping did not fight for about six months, the longest lay-off since his eye injury. During these six months, he found the coaching situation which just worked for him. Jason Parillo was that coach who Michael felt he could relate to and for Parillo, he had a real fighter in front of him who could potentially be a world champion. Jason Parillo noticed something about Bisping that was key in eventually leading to the most unlikely UFC victory for the title.
Michael Bisping before he began training at RVCA, he planned on going into fights as angry as possible. He was fighting on emotions and relaying on that to provide motivation to beat his rivals, against fighters like Rockhold and Belfort motivation was easy. Bisping being fuelled on anger worked somewhat, it meant that he always gave one hundred percent but fighting on emotions is flawed. It often meant that Michael was a mess and could not concentrate fully on the fight in front, in the case of the Henderson and Rockhold fight, these are both times where Bisping’s emotions got the better of him. Jason Parillo saw that he had a fighter with the experience and the techniques he had accumulated since he was a child and realised he just had to fix the mental side of Bisping’s game. He calmed him down and kept Michael at a level where he could think rationally and remain in control. The dividends were not immediately evident in Bisping’s fights against Thales Leites and CB Dollaway but this mental discipline was clear in the Anderson Silva.
Anderson Silva is possibly the greatest middleweight champion in the history of Mixed Martial Arts and for Michael Bisping that was the guy during his era. In the period of 2007–2011, Michael Bisping was constantly building towards fighting the unorthodox and technical Brazilian who was named ‘The Spider’. Finally, in 2016 at the O2 Arena Bisping got his opportunity to fight Anderson Silva. Many pundits saw this Fightpass card as a fun card that was essentially meaningless, it was expected that Bisping would beat Anderson in his standard fashion and retire with a marquee victory in front of his own fans. It is telling that a card that was in the UK was not even broadcast on BT Sport, Dana White had given a loyal soldier his final reward and did not care about generating views for the product.
The fight was a geniune fight of the year contender with both Bisping and Anderson Silva scoring knockdowns and almost finishing the fight. The thing was that Bisping pre-fight prediction that his volume-striking and cardio was cause Anderson trouble was actually true, Anderson could not create offence and Bisping was winning rounds easily. The infamous third round was when things changed, Anderson had knocked Michael’s mouthguard out, he pointed this out to Herb Dean and dropped his hands. Anderson leapt into a flying knee and dropped Bisping. It seemed at first that Bisping had come so close again but failed at the final hurdle yet again, ten years after his UFC career began again. However, the bell sounded as the knee landed and Bisping had a minute to stumble back to his corner.
Looking at the face of Bisping, the emotions were clear, it was as if the embarassment, pride and anger was flowing out of every cut on his scarred face. Parillo noticed this and simply said ‘we’re winning this fight’. In that instant, he put Michael at ease and brought him back to a calm, rational place. In the next two rounds, Bisping continued to put the pressure on before beating Anderson Silva by decision. It was clear that from Bisping’s emotions after the fight that he badly wanted this win and he was relieved that he finally got his marquee victory. Michael ticked off beating Anderson Silva off his bucket list, the only thing left for him to do was to become UFC champion.
He got his opportunity when Chris Weidman dropped out of a title fight at UFC 199 due to injuries. At the time, Bisping was filming xXx and was only a few months removed from the Anderson Silva. It had the perfect opponent, the cocky Luke Rockhold who he had fought two years prior but the kicker was that the fight was on two weeks notice. It felt like a gimme fight for Rockhold and Bisping was the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter until the week of the fight rolled around. In all media interviews, Michael was smart and put the pressure on Luke Rockhold to deliver the goods and win the fight. It was clear that the pressure was not affecting Bisping, british MMA journalist Nick Peet attributed it to the fact that Bisping did not spend eight weeks in camp thinking about his opponent. Moreover, there was a change mentally in Bisping, he seemed resolute and calm, he did not make any rash decisions or predictions during the various press conferences leading up to the fight. Rockhold on the other hand believed that the fight would be the same as their last fight and was arrogant enough to attack Bisping’s eye injury and revealed the fact he had an MCL injury.
Despite all this, many believed that Bisping was washed, there was no way for him to grind out a decision against Rockhold, he had the cardio but Rockhold was too dangerous for the fight to go the distance. The opposite happened at UFC 199 in front of his family, Michael Bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold to finally win the gold which had eluded him for ten years in front of his family and the loyal British fans who were watching at 5AM. The fight itself started as expected, Rockhold took the centre and began to explore his kicking game but every time Luke threw a punch, he left his chin right up in the air. Jason Parillo had noticed this in training and drilled a left hook with Bisping numerous times so that they would have a killshot. It went exactly to plan, Bisping managed to sneak that hook in like a jab and find his range. As soon as Rockhold leaned in and left his chin exposed, Bisping struck. He staggered Rockhold before following with another left hook and then some ground and pound. Then Michael Bisping was champion of the world, the path which was hard and full of thorns was completed and Bisping held the gold. The previously quiet exploded with the underdog victory as did thousands of living rooms across the United Kingdom who had been watching the fight with bated breath. Finally, our man had the championship after ten years of solid hard graft and hundreds of setbacks.
The legacy of Michael Bisping would have been complete with that victory, he could have retired a happy man with his career complete and validation for the choice in the early 2000s to give up his job and train full-time, it was validation for the sacrifices he made, sleeping in his Volvo when he did not have a place to stay at night when he trained jujitsu in Nottingham. But Michael being Michael was not content to retire as the first British UFC champion, he wanted to defend the UFC middleweight belt for the first time in Manchester. Mixed Martial Arts had a strange way of writing storylines and his first defence presented itself in the Forum just a few fights before Bisping surprised the world.
Dan Henderson had beaten Hector Lombard with a savage elbow and Dana White saw an opportunity to book a fight that would do serious PPV for sales while giving Michael a chance to get his legs under him as a champion. The ‘Bald One’ booked Bisping-Henderson 2 for UFC 204 in Manchester, Michael had already settled two past rivalries in 2016 and he had the opportunity to close the book on a dark part of his career, the part where he was ridiculed and there was a certain amount of schraedenfreude. He conclusively beat Luke Rockhold, he conclusively beat the demons of PED fighters in the form of Anderson Silva and now he could go 3–3 on the issues which had plagued his entire career.
At UFC 204, Michael Bisping handily beat Dan Henderson over five rounds and exercised his last demon. Like the greats before him, he had avenged his key losses, he had beaten Luke Rockhold and Dan Henderson. GSP did the same with Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, Michael in the last legs of his career was building a resume to be considered one of the truly great MMA fighters of all time. The key difference was that Michael Bisping was a different type of martial artist, he never touched PEDs like most of his divisions despite the fact these steroids were readily available. He suffered through losses to Chael Sonnen, Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort during the formative part of his career, all fighters who have been popped for PEDs. Bisping on the other hand did things the right way, he was never exceptionally athletic or had great punching power. Michael Bisping became a champion due to his well-rounded style and loving of fighting. He could have retired at home but he had one last challenge on his mind, the other great of his era Georges St Pierre.
Georges St Pierre had announced his return to the USADA testing pool and expressed a desire to fight Michael Bisping. The fight was announced in March with a date attached to it. The plan was for GSP to beat Woodley and win the welterweight championship and then go up to middleweight and fight Michael Bisping at UFC 217, the New York card which is always stacked. Injuries and various shceduling conflicts meant that GSP never did face Woodley and his first fight in the UFC for four years would be against Bisping in a weight class he had never been in. The fight probably should not have been a title fight but it was so intriguing as both fighters were evenly-matched. George had the better ground game by far but Bisping was marginally a better striker and would have a greater gas tank due to the fact he had multiple fights at 185 that went five-rounds.
In the build-up, there was a little bit of trash-talk to sell the fight but there was a genuine respect between two lifelong mixed martial artists, both had taken up traditional disciplines when they were children and seemed to believed in the code of honour that comes with martial arts. It was also interesting to see how this fight would affect the legacy of GSP and Michael. Bisping winning the fight would put him in G.O.A.T conversation as he would have the most UFC victories, wins over Anderson Silva and GSP and the UFC middleweight championship. Alternatively, if Georges won it would mean that he would be a two-weight world champion and still the supernatural talent that he was four years prior as he ran through title defences against people like Jonny Hendricks, Carlos Condit and Josh Koscheck.
The fight was hugely anticipated and it delivered massively, the crowd was raucous and shots were being traded by both men. Bisping looked up for the fight if a little stiff due to a training camp injury that had been caused by his jujitsu coach, Dean Amasinger. GSP looked suprisingly comfortable at middleweight and was not intimidated by the bigger man. The first two rounds could have been scored either, at that point in the fight it seemed like a draw but the third round was when the fight kicked into another gear. GSP landed a takedown on Bisping and looked to control Bisping on the ground where his skills were much stronger. Instead Michael managed to get into top position and did some serious damage with hard sharp elbows before standing the fight back. That was his ultimate mistake, GSP rocked him and worked the ground and pound against the cage. George then used his brain and briefly stopped striking, Bisping being disorientated went to stand up and GSP locked in a tight RNC.
Bisping may have lost the fight but ‘The Count’ had re-inforced his own legacy, he put in a very good performance against one of the true greats of the sport while headlining a marquee card in New York. Moreover, UFC 217 was another reminder of the barriers that Bisping broke in terms of perception of European mixed martial artists. At the time when Bisping arrived in the UFC, European fighters were few and far between and most of them were not seen as ‘draws’. The main question that gets asked of fighters is ‘can you sell fights?’, before Bisping there was not really a European fighter who could sell fights with their wits and create rivalries. In many ways, he broke ground so that fighters like Conor McGregor, an Irishman could headline UFC events without any questions. It is probable that by Michael becoming a fighter with a lot of fans and haters, it paved the way for fighters like Dan Hardy and Darren Till to headline UFC cards.
Another aspect of Bisping’s legacy that has to be explored is that he has led an increase in awareness and understanding of MMA in the UK. Before Michael Bisping burst onto the scene, MMA was seen as a cruel and barbaric sport in which fighters were permanently disfigured in freakshow fights. Bisping helped to establish the UFC as a sport in the eyes of the public. It is telling that before Michael Bisping, disciplines like BJJ, Karate and Boxing were all held at separate gyms, fighters had to cross-train. Now, it is much easier for a young British MMA fighter, there are multiple gyms across the country who provide Mixed Martial Arts training. Bisping provided legitimacy for a sport that has always been seen as boxing little brutal brother.
Michael Bisping’s legacy is undeniable, he was the everyman fighter who stuck to the roided-up fighters he faced in the earlier part of his career and the cocky opponents who quickly dismissed Clitheroe’s finest. He was never the most athletic or the most powerful but Bisping proved that a fighter could succeed with a well-rounded skillset and rugged determination. As Michael moves into commentary and acting, he can look back on his career with fondness and see more British fighters in the UFC than ever more. Fighters like Darren Till, Leon Edwards and Marc Diakiese are all rising prospects in the UFC who have bright futures and could potentially hold the gold like Bisping did.
