Tag: open workout

To say the we like to have our fun at Michael Bisping’s expense would be like saying that Muhammad Ali liked to have his fun at Joe Frazier’s expense. Bisping is a polarizing figure in every sense of the word and one who is not likely to back down in the face of adversity. Therein lies his appeal. So if we could offer any advice to the Bisping haters out there, it would be to stifle said hatred when in “The Count’s” actual presence. Otherwise, you could quickly find yourself on the wrong end of a verbal (not to mention physical) beatdown in the near future.

Take this guy for instance:

As one can deduce from a basic ocular patdown – Skull t-shirt? Check. Dyed hair/soul patch/spray tan combo? Check. A faux gold chain draped over said skull t-shirt? Chiggity check yourself before you wreck yourself, Cotton – this guy knows A LOT about MMA. Hence his decision to heckle Bisping from the crowd during his UFC 152 open workout.

It did not go well.

“It takes more than two punches to win a belt,” the gentlemen we shall now refer to as “The Shituation” called out, clearly an acolyte of Freddie Roach.

“Oh yeah, cause you’d know. Where’s your belt, big boy?” Bisping responds, which is really the only response any fighter ever has to give a heckler with love handles.

And before Shituation can even begin to roll up his sleeves and reveal his wicked sweet tribal tats, Bisping hits him with the figurative one-two punch, which in this case is daring the guy to take a one-two punch from Bisping:

“Hey I can do a couple warmup rounds if you want to jump in. Let’s see how big your balls are, son.” Bisping challenges. The crowd appropriately gives the Brit his due credit with a collective “Awww snap!”

At this point, the heckler continues to pursue without actually stepping up and taking his medicine and is promptly escorted out of the building to the cheers of everyone else in attendance. On the Joe Rogan Scale of Heckler Annihilation, we give “The Count” and 8.5 out of 10. His performance would have been flawless had he decided against taking a final shot at The Shituation on his way out:

“You’re the tough guy, you got the Afflicition shirt on!” Bisping shouted before being wrangled back in by his boxing coach Jason Parillo. It’s a solid burn, one that is actually taken directly from the master’s playbook, but it loses some of its punch when you consider that Bisping is sponsored by the company he was just shitting on.

Bisping later claimed in an interview with Ariel Helwani that he only threw the man out because he was irritating Parillo, which, whatever. Bisping 1, Heckler 0.

And speaking of earning some fans, skip ahead to the 5 minute mark of the video to see Jon Jones jovially interacting with the pro-Belfort Brazilians in the crowd. He even goes in for the high five on one of them only to pull away at the last second. Cool as a cucumber, this guy is.

Waitaminute…Bones Jones and Michael Bisping both avoided yet another public relations nightmare and came across as likable dudes? On the same day?

–J. Jones