Instagram – Michael Bisping
Michael Bisping shared a video from his view as 10,000 fans reacted poorly to an eye poke ending Rodriguez vs. Stephens after just 15 seconds.
Leading up to the Yair Rodriguez vs. Jeremy Stephens main event at UFC on ESPN+ 17 from Mexico City, the words ‘guaranteed barnburner’ were thrown around a lot. Unfortunately, what we got instead was a complete bust. 15 seconds into the fight, Rodriguez pawed his hand out and seriously messed up Stephens’ eye. The fight was stopped, Yair was upset, Jeremy was upset, and the 10,000 fans at the Mexico City Arena were upset.
That translated into a whole bunch of beer and food getting thrown down into the Octagon area. There’s shameful footage of Jeremy Stephens having to run a gauntlet through a press of people throwing trash his way. On the more entertaining tip, we now also have video of commentary team Brendan Fitzgerald and Michael Bisping reacting to the madness.
Bisping takes the wave of warm beer like it’s a few drops of rain on a typical British day. Fitzgerald? He decides to continue his duties from under the announcer’s table.
”I’m pretty sure I just got a Modelo in the face,” Bisping remarked, earning bonus points for getting in that sponsorship mention.
”I guess it’s just a dry cleaning bill, but you hate to see this” Fitzgerald said.
”It’s progressed from Modelo to ice cubes to bottles!” Bisping exclaimed.
Bisping stayed cool like a cucumber through the entire affair, handing the trash tossing and an incident where Yair Rodriguez snapped at him with unflappable calm. After the show he even stuck around to record another video with some less angry fans who were still willing to have some fun following the unfortunate main event.