Bisping’s a champion fight promoter
The Count changes narrative, pressures St-Pierre to step into the cage in July
You’ve got to tip your cap to UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping. The 38-year-old titleholder understands how to generate interest in his fights and hold the audience’s attention as well as anyone on the roster, including Conor McGregor.
His unflinching belief that he was destined to win championship gold made him easy to begrudgingly root for, because it seemed like it was never going to happen — and the brashness he’s carried himself with since surprising everyone by winning the middleweight strap last June has been thoroughly entertaining.
Plus, to his credit, Bisping has never shied away from speaking his mind and stating the facts as he sees them, and in an era of couched answers and recycled clichés, “The Count” has always been refreshingly honest and open.
Couple that with Bisping’s ability to turn a meeting with the Dalai Lama into a grudge match — likely by calling him a bunch of things that cannot be printed here — and the ways he’s always able to find a comfortable position between hero and villain that sucks you in whether you’re rooting for him or against him, and you have someone that plays the game on a level very few ever reach.
And yet, Bisping is still stepping his game up.
Earlier this week, the middleweight champion went on his podcast, Believe You Me, and took aim at Georges St-Pierre, the man he is expected to face later this year. Just a couple weeks after the two traded verbal jabs at a press conference in Las Vegas to promote their future clash, Bisping threw out the idea that if the returning French-Canadian superstar wants to wait until the fall to fight, he’ll have to find himself another opponent.
“I’m just throwing it out there right now, if he wants to wait until September or October, then he can go find himself another opponent, buddy, because I call the shots,” Bisping said, explaining he wants to fight at International Fight Week in July.
“Without sounding like an ---hole, it’s my belt. I’m the champion and I’m not willing to sit around until September or October.”
Bisping followed that up by saying if St-Pierre has no interest in fighting this summer, he’d happily square off with Yoel Romero, the consensus top contender who has become a sympathetic figure after being passed over in favour of St-Pierre.
This is a brilliant move because it shifts the pressure to make the fight happen onto St-Pierre and positions Bisping as a fighting champion ready to take on all comers — even though that’s not completely accurate.
Bisping could have signed up to defend his belt against Romero, a world-class athlete with an 8-0 record in the Octagon who would be favoured to take the belt from The Count should they meet, before the opportunity to face St-Pierre became a reality. Yet he wisely laid back to see what other options existed and landed the biggest, most lucrative fight possible.
It was a wise business decision from a guy correctly looking to make the most of his time atop the division, just as doubling back now to tease the possibility of balking at the much-maligned big money bout in favour of a dangerous title defence against Romero is an adroit media manoeuvre.
Now, instead of looking like the unlikely champion is avoiding the Murderer’s Row of potential challengers within the division in favour of a big-name talent who has never competed at middleweight and last fought more than three years ago, Bisping has created a space for himself between the two, and altered the narrative surrounding his next fight.
He’s playing on both sides of the money fights vs. meritocracy debate and is winning people over in the process, ensuring his second defence of the UFC middleweight title will remain a hot topic of discussion from now until it actually happens.
Whenever that may be and regardless of whom he’s facing.
E. Spencer Kyte covers MMA for The Sun and The Province. Follow him on social media: @spencerkyte.