Middleweight champion Michael Bisping (30-7) has traded barbs back-and-forth with contender Yoel Romero ever since the Englishman won the title from Luke Rockhold back at last year’s UFC 199. Romero ramped up his verbal assault on the champion after leveling former champ Chris Weidman with a flying knee at UFC 205, but his efforts to
Middleweight champion Michael Bisping (30-7) has traded barbs back-and-forth with contender Yoel Romero ever since the Englishman won the title from Luke Rockhold back at last year’s UFC 199.
Romero ramped up his verbal assault on the champion after leveling former champ Chris Weidman with a flying knee at UFC 205, but his efforts to lobby for a title shot have fallen on deaf ears as the UFC booked Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre for GSP’s comeback fight.
The middleweight champion dismissed the idea of defending his belt against the Cuban Olympic wrestler, suggesting that he take on another former champ in Luke Rockhold to determine who will fight Bisping next, but not before ruthlessly lampooning Romero in a hilarious impersonation on UFC Tonight:
Bisping kept his usual trash talk by saying he doesn’t care what ‘The Soldier of God’ likes and suggesting the high-profile fight:
“They can fight each other. Luke versus Yoel. Do it,” Bisping said.
Meanwhile, “The Count” is set to defend his middleweight belt against former welterweight kingpin Georges Saint Pierre, with a tentative date set for July 8, according to Bisping himself.
Bisping most recently defeated longtime foe Dan Henderson by decision at UFC 204 in October. GSP will enter the bout with the champ coming off of a nearly four-year layoff, and will be competing for the first time at 185 pounds in his UFC and MMA career.
Romero has certainly made his case for a title shot, having won all eight of his Octagon appearances and amassing an impressive 13-1 record overall. Bisping was in the crowd when Romero brutally knocked out Weidman in the third round. The Cuban powerhouse immediately called the champ out following the victory.
As of now, it remains unclear whether Romero will wait for his shot at the middleweight title or if he will take another fight while Bisping vs. GSP plays out later this year.
He’s got kind of a wrestling heel vibe, dominating opponents with athleticism and skill while affording himself enough “lie, cheat and steal” latitude so that you’re never surprised if …
Yoel Romero might just be the best.
He’s got kind of a wrestling heel vibe, dominating opponents with athleticism and skill while affording himself enough “lie, cheat and steal” latitude so that you’re never surprised if his doping tests are flagged or he takes an extra minute or two on the stool between rounds.
If you like your MMA entertainment to extend beyond just fists meeting faces, you’re probably into Cuba’s predominant combat athlete.
This week, he fancied himself a matchmaker. Turned out he was a pretty good one too.
Seeing his title shot scrapped in favor of the utterly stupid Michael Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre matchup, Romero called on the UFC to make an interim title fight between himself and the legendary Anderson Silva in an interview on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. The fight, for however unlikely it would have appeared even as recently as a few weeks ago, made the weirdest kind of sense.
Silva is still among the biggest names in the sport, even as a guy who’ll be 42 next month and has one (controversial) win since 2012. He defended the middleweight title more times than anyone has defended any title between 2006 and 2013 and owns the type of highlight reel of which most athletes only dream.
Romero suggested no one else who’s any good is available to fight him, and Silva made sense based on cache and circumstance.
He was right.
A quick look at the rankings shows everyone between Romero and Silva as booked or injured, and if he wanted a fight it appeared Silva should be it. It also appeared that it should be for an interim title, because everything might as well be for an interim title the way 2017 has been shaping up. Beyond that, there are some intriguing permutations on the other side of a Romero-Silva dance.
Romero and Bisping win their bouts, they meet as planned in the most meritorious middleweight matchup possible.
Silva and Bisping win, you get a rematch of their electric 2016 scrap that easily would have been Fight of the Year if Robbie Lawler and Carlos Conditweren’t so good at violence.
Romero and GSP win, and you’ve got the hulking beast Romero looking to roast his second straight all-time great as he hits 40 years old himself, an unprecedented feat that would suddenly turn his career into something pretty great itself.
Silva and GSP win and you get the superfight fans have been waiting on for a decade but which has been ever so elusive for ever so many reasons over that time. Title versus title at middleweight seems to eliminate just about every one of those reasons and make the meeting, finally, a certainty.
Only the UFC didn’t see it that way.
Despite the obvious thrills and potential for revenue such an interesting matchup would offer, the promotion pivoted from it by booking Silva into a bout with upstart contender Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 212. Gastelum has looked ferocious since his continued losses to the scale at welterweight forced him north to 185, scoring standout wins over Tim Kennedy and VitorBelfort. He’s 4-0 as a middleweight in the UFC.
In many ways, the Gastelum fight provides a similar opportunity for the UFC to build something: A true contender scores a win over a living legend and walks out of the cage within spitting distance of a shot at Bisping or St-Pierre.
Still, the fight lacks the appeal of Romero-Silva on a broader level. There are no storylines ready to emerge from it. Nothing truly exciting.
It’s, at best, a nice win for a rising prospect who would be in the top five as opposed to undeniably next for a title fight. At worst, Silva blisters that rising prospect and creates questions about why someone so undersized is fighting among relative giants while doing little for his own legacy in the process.
It’s a booking that’s just weird instead of one that makes the weirdest kind of sense.
Even more weird is that this newfangled UFC didn’t see that. A group so in love with money should easily have seen the potential of the outcomes noted above, and it should have understood that every one of those outcomes would be bigger than anything involving Gastelum.
Yet here we are, Silva and Gastelum circling one another while Romero is left wondering why no one appreciates his brilliance—in the cage or, apparently, as a matchmaker.
Yoel Romero has a huge fight in his sights while he waits for champion Michael Bisping. All-time great Anderson Silva may have other fights in mind, but “Soldier of God” believes he should take on the top-ranked 185-pound contender. Romero has been on an incredible tear in his eight-fight win streak, caping it off with a vicious flying
Romero has been on an incredible tear in his eight-fight win streak, caping it off with a vicious flying knee knockout in the third round of his match-up with former champ Chris Weidman at UFC 205 this past November. Romero was primed as the next candidate to challenge Bisping for the 185-pound throne, but all-time great welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre decided to make his Octagon return at 185 pounds and will challenge ‘The Count’ for the belt on a yet-to-be-determined date.
Romero isn’t happy with the former welterweight king jumping to the front of the middleweight title picture, but won’t wait around for Bisping to get his opportunity at becoming a UFC champion.
Romero joined The MMA Hour earlier today (Mon. March 13, 2017) to discuss what he wants to happen next in his mixed martial arts (MMA) career, and stated an interim middleweight title bout against former champ Silva interests him a great deal (quotes via BJPenn.com):
“A fight with Anderson would be great,” he said. “It would be great for me, it would be great for the fans, and a fight for an interim title would be really good in general.”
“I’ve already fought everybody else,” he said. “I’ve already fought and beat everybody else. The only person that is amongst those great stars is Anderson. We both have to play with the same plans of St-Pierre. At this moment, this is almost like a chess match.”
Silva comes off his first win in almost five years when he took home a controversial unanimous decision win over Derek Brunson last month at UFC 209. With ‘The Spider’ now being called out by the likes of Romero and No. 10-ranked middleweight Kelvin Gastelum, perhaps Silva could be getting a massive step up in competition soon.
The UFC’s gifting of an immediate title shot to Georges St-Pierre against UFC middleweight Michael Bisping has polarized fans and pundits alike. When Dana White effectively retracted a previous statement confirming Yoel Romero would fight Bisping next by confirming that GSP would be afforded a shot at the title following his MMA exile, eyebrows were […]
The UFC’s gifting of an immediate title shot to Georges St-Pierre against UFC middleweight Michael Bisping has polarized fans and pundits alike. When Dana White effectively retracted a previous statement confirming Yoel Romero would fight Bisping next by confirming that GSP would be afforded a shot at the title following his MMA exile, eyebrows were […]
After nearly three years away from the sport, former longtime welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre recently announced that he would be making his long awaited return to action and UFC President Dana White made it clear that “Rush” would be taking on reigning middleweight king Michael Bisping later this year. While the fight will certainly
After nearly three years away from the sport, former longtime welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre recently announced that he would be making his long awaited return to action and UFC President Dana White made it clear that “Rush” would be taking on reigning middleweight king Michael Bisping later this year.
Bisping has since responded to Rogan’s comments, arguing that the commentator ‘contradicted’ himself:
“Listen, Joe’s a very smart man and he’s very learned on the subject of mixed martial arts and the UFC,” Bisping said on his Sirius XM podcast The Countdown. “He’s been around forever. He knows the sport, but as I say, he kind of contradicted himself. He’s like, ‘why have title fights?’ but then he says, ‘I, for sure, would get the popcorn and buy this PPV.”
Continuing on, “The Count” feels as if he has earned the right to lobby for the most lucrative fights available given the years he has put into the sport of mixed martial arts:
“See, to become a champion, you have to pay your dues which I did for a long, long, long time. When you become the champion, it changes because now, it’s only a very small portion, but you get a portion of the PPV. Now every single fight you have, there’s a possibility you’re going to lose that fight, So you want to maximize the potential.
“You want the fights to be as big as possible, but in terms of credibility as well, that has to be a factor. With Georges St-Pierre coming back, I feel like I’m trying to justify a point that I’ve said a million times, but Joe actually just said there himself, he would buy the fight. He 100% would buy it, so therefore, there goes my argument.”
Those who have agreed with Rogan have criticized the booking simply because St. Pierre, a natural welterweight who hasn’t fought since UFC 167, is returning and leap frogging worthy 185-pound title contenders, most notably No. 1-ranked Yoel Romero. In regards to this idea, Bisping said that St. Pierre will serve as a ‘warm-up’ fight for Romero, who “The Count” plans to take on shortly after his bout with GSP:
“Well actually, it’s not crazy, it’s not ludicrous, it’s not beyond the realms of imagination, because Georges St-Pierre, in a lot of ways, is the perfect warm-up fight for Yoel Romero,” Bisping said about Rogan’s criticism of fighting Romero immediately after GSP. “They’ve got very similar styles. Yes, Yoel is bigger and hits harder, but they’ve both got fantastic wrestling, they’re both shorter guys than me.
“Say we fight, I don’t know when it is, say UFC 215 for argument’s sake. UFC 217, I’ll do it (fight Romero). I’ll do it because I don’t want all the work I’ve done, all the wrestling work I’ve done, I don’t want to get rusty in that regard.”
Georges St-Pierre is returning to the Octagon later this year, and he will challenge Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. UFC color commentator Joe Rogan is not a fan of that decision.
Rogan joined the 5ive Rounds podcast (h/t MMAFighting.com’s …
Georges St-Pierre is returning to the Octagon later this year, and he will challenge Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. UFC color commentator Joe Rogan is not a fan of that decision.
Rogan’s disagreement stems from a “purist point of view.” The longtime UFC commentator said, “If you’re going to have a champion and you’re gonna have these divisions where one man rules over the division, there should be a very clear hierarchy.”
Does he have a point?
Yoel Romero was next in line for a title shot and had a feud starting to boil with Bisping. Now that gets put on hold for an undisclosed amount of time. The former Olympian is on an eight-fight win streak, whereas GSP has not fought since November 2013.
The Bisping-GSP clash does put a hold on the middleweight contenders who have been competing regularly, while GSP steps in at a new weight for a title shot right away. Perhaps this is just the new reality under WME-IMG. Name value and pay-per-view drawing ability will always trump current rankings.
In short, spectacle will always topple sport.
Rogan is firmly in the sporting camp. He continued on in the podcast saying, “If you’re gonna do this whole interim title thing and you’re gonna have guys come back after being out of the sport for three years and get a shot right at the title, why have f–king championships at all.”
He did call the Bisping-GSP bout a great fight, and it is. However, this is a larger argument about the UFC and upholding a semblance of sport. Championships mean something, but giving out title shots to fighters who haven’t fought in over three years diminishes the meaning of the entire division.
For Bisping, GSP and the UFC, it makes sense. It is a money fight and the biggest fight they could do in the division. It’s something everyone understands, but it forces Romero and the rest of the middleweights into a holding pattern. Especially since GSP will not commit to defending the title belt.
Rogan is a purist and a lover of keeping MMA a sport. He has a great argument for the dangers of this type of matchmaking, but money will always speak loudest. Principally when an entity spends $4 billion for the UFC.
