Being Michael Bisping has always been pretty good business.
You might say Bisping was Conor McGregor before the Irish dandy ever laced a pair of fingerless gloves. After winning Season 3 of The Ultimate Fighter back in 2006, The Count became something of a unique commodity for the UFC. Not only was he a linchpin in the fight company’s international expansion efforts—fighting 14 of his 22 UFC fights outside the U.S.—but he managed to turn most of his bouts into compelling grudge matches, too.
For eight-and-a-half years running, Bisping has been able to tease a saleable fight out of just about anyone. That’s a good skill to have in this line of work, though as he prepares to fight Luke Rockhold on Friday at UFC Fight Night 55, maybe it’s also part of the problem.
For whatever reason, this particular feud just didn’t take. No matter how many times we were assured that these two really don’t like each other—allegedly stemming from an off-the-cuff joke Bisping made years ago—it’s been hard to commit much emotional energy to their back-and-forth.
Not for lack of trying. Rockhold certainly got the full Bisping treatment leading up to their main event bout in Sydney, Australia. The two fighters clashed on TV sets, conference calls and during photo shoots. Bisping called Rockhold names, swore at him and publicly promised to beat him up (which, of course, was going to be the objective either way).
At this point, there’s just something stale about watching Bisping try to irritate, castigate and intimidate yet another opponent. You get the distinct impression it could be anyone on the other end of that conference call—Cung Le, Jorge Rivera, Chris Leben—and Bisping would be spewing the same vitriol, plying the same tactics to try to get him out of his element and into his kind of fight.
Not that there’s anything fake about Bisping’s act, mind you. After so many years of seeing repeat performance after repeat performance, we must conclude it is genuine. This really is Bisping’s personality—grating, touchy, snappish—or, at least, the one he uses while he’s at work.
It’s just that, after watching his star begin to fade en route to a 3-3 record since 2012 and his position in the UFC landscape start to slip (this is his second straight appearance to air only on UFC Fight Pass), it’s all feeling a tad predictable.
Hard to invest in any sort of Rockhold-Bisping kerfuffle when you know this time next year it’ll just be Bisping and somebody else hurling the same barbs, posing for the same pictures.
No, the most interesting thing about this fight isn’t that Bisping and Rockhold don’t like each other. Far from it. The most interesting thing is that this might well be Bisping‘s last chance to boost himself back into the middleweight elite.
That role he played so well for so many years? The one where he quarterbacked UFC events all over the globe, while doing his level best to make each one distinct and as interesting as possible? It was yeoman’s work, and it made him a consummate company man, but it never got him to the Promised Land.
Each time Bisping’s high-volume, hunt-and-peck striking style would get him within spitting distance of a 185-pound title shot, he’d let down. He lost title eliminators to Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen and more recently dropped important contender bouts to Vitor Belfort and Tim Kennedy.
At 35 years old, the crossroad is clear. If he beats the fifth-ranked Rockhold this weekend, he’ll get one last tour among the middleweight A-list. It might even earn him another No. 1 contender bout against somebody like Yoel Romero next spring.
If he loses? He’ll fade further into the company of also-rans.
Those are the real stakes here, further heightened by the fact Bisping is going off as more than a 3-to-1 underdog, according to OddsShark.com. Rockhold is a big, dynamic middleweight who would’ve been a tall order for Bisping at the height of his powers. At the moment, he appears the perfect guy to show us what the brash Brit has left in the tank.
You ask me? That’s a lot more interesting than tales of hurt feelings, disposable trash talk and another in a long line of arbitrary feuds.
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