Michael Bisping’s Road to the Title Against All Odds
By JM “Shade” Daguio
Michael Bisping had been waiting for this opportunity for 10 years and now he has a chance to prove himself in the octagon. The road to contendership wasn’t easy for Michael Bisping, who was always a perennial middleweight for the most part of his career. He debuted in the UFC in 2006 and still competing 10 years later, for the first part he was a light heavyweight with good wins, after a split decision loss to future champion Rashad Evans, Bisping realized he was too small for light heavyweight and decided to try his luck in the middleweight division where he has remained a top-10 fighter for a good 7 years.
The sad reality of Bisping’s shift to middleweight at that time was that it was ruled by Anderson Silva, who many considered as the greatest middleweight of all time if not the greatest of all time. Bisping’s campaign has yielded good results with wins versus Brian Stann, Chris Leben, Cung Le, Denis Kang and Jason Miller, however Bisping’s title pursuit would always be cut short when he fights the elites of middleweight, it seems that Bisping’s cardio could only take him so far with a division full of KO artists, world-class wrestlers and well-rounded fighters, Bisping had no chance of even racking a sizeable streak, Until now…
After losing to current champion Luke Rockhold in their first meeting, Bispin racked up a good 3-fight streak including a thrilling decision win versus Anderson Silva, on paper it wasn’t good enough to bypass Chris Weidman’s rematch with Rockhold or even get pass “Jacare” Souza’s eventual 2nd-in-line status.
But fate was smiling on Bisping, Weidman was injured during training for the Rockhold fight and Souza cannot replace Weidman because he’s nursing an injury after his own fight with Vitor Belfort.
Michael Bisping was the right man for the job, brash and cocky, Bisping would be a perfect match against Rockhold’s laid-back nature. What makes things even great is that this is a rematch of their 2014 fight in Australia where Rockhold submitted Bisping in an otherwise closely contested match, Rockhold caught Bisping with a kick to the head which eventually lead to the one-arm guillotine submission win.
Bisping insists this time it will be different, it was a fight he was doing great until he got caught, he feels he’s on the right track and mindset to defeat Rockhold and finally capture his first UFC title.
On paper, Rockhold wins this fight, he has a wide array of skills and talent to dismantle Bisping in any way, manner, shape or form. But Bisping also has the right tools to counter most of Rockhold’s strengths, Bisping is well-rounded in most disciplines, his pace would make a huge difference in the fight, Rockhold does not really do good when fighting backwards and Bisping can exploit that, he has to constantly keep Rockhold on his toes and keep him guessing with his pace.
Chris Weidman’s anticipated rematch with Rockhold may have been scrapped but Michael Bisping stepping up is a huge gain to this fight, the middleweight division is in a post-Anderson Silva logjam, with a lot of fighters staking their claim to the title and Michael Bisping is one of them, his is a story of do-or-die where a veteran will finally get his revenge and opportunity for immortality against all odds.
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