Number three-ranked middleweight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza feels current champion Michael Bisping is avoiding a fight against him.
Right after defeating Dan Henderson at UFC 204, middleweight champion Michael Bisping went on to campaign for match-ups against fighters outside of his division for UFC 206 in December. “The Count” had been initially clamoring for a fight against Georges St-Pierre, but when that fell through, he went on to call out Nick Diaz.
Bisping is now ruled out of the fight, after he had evidently suffered a fractured orbital bone and a leg injury after facing Henderson. He had also been previously accused of avoiding a fight against number three-ranked Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza”, in which he clarified that he was merely going after the bigger payday.
“I’ve never ducked anybody in my life. Now, I know what everybody at home is going to say: ‘Didn’t you call out GSP a couple of weeks ago?’ Yes, I did, but really, think about this — that was a massive payday,” Bisping said. “Roughly $3-4 million dollars I would have earned for that fight. Against Jacare, I’m going to get around about a quarter.”
Jacare was originally slated to fight former champion Luke Rockhold in a rematch for November 26th, but was forced to be scrapped when the latter pulled out due to injury. Now, he has directed his attention back to Bisping.
“Stop running from me, Bisping. It’s time to face a real contender,” Souza said in a recent Instagram video post. “Real champion fight a real contender. You need to show to the world that you can be a real champion. I’m next. You wanna fight me.”