According to former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight champion Michael Bisping, he was recently nearly mugged in Cape Town, South Africa by a group of aggressive homeless people. In town filming his latest movie project, “The Count’s” Friday night out with friends quickly turned into what could’ve been a disaster.
To hear Bisping tell it, after a late dinner and drink meetup with the cast and crew, he was met by a “nasty” group of people on his way to the hotel that wanted to take his wallet.
“It is beautiful by day, at night the freaks come out and it is a very, very dangerous place,” Michael Bisping said in his “Believe You Me” podcast as transcribed by BJPenn.com.
“We go out for a Chinese meal, [I] don’t like Chinese but whatever…” Bisping says, “We end up having a few drinks. I get back, it’s like three o clock in the morning and the uber driver drops me off at a four-way cross street not by my hotel, and he says ‘your hotel is over there’, so I get out the car and the uber driver drives off and I don’t know which way to go,” he added.
Admitting he was lost and a little tipsy, Michael caught the attention of group of homeless people who were quick to try to take advantage of him.
“All the while, I may have been stumbling slightly, and staring at my phone which is a giveaway, I’m on my apps,” He says. “Im stumbling around a little bit and all of a sudden low and behold, the freaks came out, the thieves came out, the muggers, the nasty f***ing criminal b****rds…before I knew it, I was surrounded by 10 to 15 homeless people begging for money and then they started getting kind of nasty.”
Getting into full defense mode right away, “The Count” says he yelled at the group rather aggressively to stay back.
“At this point now, because my defences are up, I’m trying to be big, just like a lion in the jungle puffs out his mane… I’m puffing out my chest and I’m trying to look as scary as possible so these motherfuckers don’t make a move,” said the ex-champ, who said the group threatened to hurt him if he didn’t give up his wallet.
Furthermore, Bisping says two men riding in a fake cop car joined the party and threatened to take him before he eventually made a run for it.
“Two fucking guys jump out looking wasted, more wasted then me, very glossy eyes..they start screaming ‘get in the car, get in the car,’ he said. “I’m backing up, there was a little opening and I just f***ing ran. They didn’t chase much, and I ran down the street and low and behold there was my f***ing hotel.”
According to “The Count,” he is in the process of being relocated to a much safer part of the city. If you recall, Bisping and his family were robbed twice during their Hawaiian vacation in 2017. That getaway almost proved fatal for him after going through a near-drowning experience, as well.