Michael Bisping wants to see ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong put his best lightweight fighters against the UFC’s reigning division champion, Islam Makhachev.
Bisping’s comments come on the heels of Sityodtong dubbing UFC strikers as “sloppy” and “mediocre-ish” while putting over his own product in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post.
“What you see in, let’s say the UFC, is very sloppy, mediocre-ish striking because they’re not strikers,” Sityodtong said. “A typical UFC fighter is a D-1 college wrestler, 7-0 in the minor leagues and then they do a little bit of striking then they enter the UFC. At ONE, all these are world champions before they arrive and they’re already multiple [time] world champions at their peak of their career when they arrive.”
Responding on his Believe You Me podcast, Michael Bisping understood that Sityodtong was simply trying to promote his company and his roster of world-class fighters, including Muay Thai sensation Rodtang Jitmuangnon.
“Yeah, I mean, first of all, he’s being a promoter,” Bisping said. “Fair play to him. He’s saying we got the better fighters, we got the better strikers, and so on and so forth. In doing so, he’s attacked the UFC and the quality of the fighters. Granted, Rodtang and some of the fighters he has mentioned, they’re phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.”
Bisping Challenges ONE Championship CEO to Bring His Best Lightweights
With that said, ‘The Count’ was more than ready to lay down a challenge, suggesting ONE Championship bring its best lightweight fighters and see how they do against the UFC’s reigning 155-pound monster, Islam Makhachev.
“Bring your best strikers over to the UFC and put them, they’ll be lightweights, put them up against Islam Makhachev and see what happens,” Bisping added. “Guaranteed they’ll be choked out pretty quickly” (h/t Sportskeeda).
ONE Championship’s current lightweight king is Christian Lee, the brother of recently retired atomweight queen Angela Lee.
Christian Lee has established himself as one of the promotion’s prolific finishers, amassing an impressive 17-4 record with a 94% finish rate, including 12 KOs and one submission. In his last outing, Lee scored a fourth-round knockout against Kiamrian Abbasov to claim the welterweight title and become a two-division champion under the ONE banner.
Who do you think would win in a fight between Christian Lee and Islam Makhachev?
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