While some of the controversy surrounding UFC 127 laid upon the main-event of the evening, which pitted former champ BJ Penn against Jon Fitch where the two welterweights fought to a draw, Michael Bisping might have taken the spotlight.
At UFC 127, which took place at the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia, there was a lot of heat between both Jorge Rivera and Michael Bisping, who were the co-main event of the evening late last month.
Rivera posted numerous videos online, mocking the Brit, and it clearly got under his skin. Eventually, the two met and Bisping was declared the winner via TKO. However, the fight wasn’t without it’s issues, and the whole world took note, including UFC President Dana White, and he has since punished the Bisping accordingly.
At UFC 127, Bisping landed an illegal knee to a downed Rivera. While things of this nature happen all the time, Michael’s knee seemed a little more malicious, at least that was consensus by most fans and fighters who witnessed the bout. Rivera had both knees on the ground and Bisping meanwhile clinched with both hands and landed the knee to the head.
Though Jorge eventually rose to his feet, he was clearly never really back in the fight.
Rivera went on to battle through the second-round, however Michael flurried him against the cage, landing standing elbows which eventually dropped “El COnquistador” and called a halt to the bout.
Soon after, Bisping retreated to Rivera’s corner, screaming profanities and spitting at the cornerman of Rivera. As Jorge went to embrace Michael to congratulate him on the win, the Brit pushed his friendly gesture away and continued to be loud and boisterous.
Though Bisping was apologetic afterwards, Dana White took note of his actions and an interview with Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, reported that he had witheld a “bonus” from the Brit. While it’s unclear what that bonus is, White suggests that it would be than justifiable for what Michael had done.
So, MMA peeps, what do you make of the news? Sound off in the comment section below.
Chael Sonnen calls out Michael Bisping
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I think every one is forgetting the crap what was said before the fight
This highlights the need for the UFC to establish stonger guidelines for appropriate conduct. We can all assume that pre-fight hype isn’t going anywhere, because it’s a major PPV driver, but the UFC needs to set some limits to what is acceptable.
But more importantly, Bisping’s behavior in the ring was completely unacceptable. I’m glad Dana did something about it, but he should have been DQ’ed, end of story. I’ve never seen a more blatantly illegal strike, and it changed the whole fight. Making the victim and his corner decide whether to continue the fight doesn’t make any sense–willfully accepting the DQ win would make Rivera look soft, and that’s the last thing any fighter wants to appear to be. So he kept fighting, clearly with severely diminished faculties. That’s not a fair choice.
Fighters, by and large, are extremely respectful to one another. Setting clear rules and consequences out ahead of time would go a long way to preventing these sorts of issues, because they’re only going to happen more and more often as the money and fame of being a UFC fighter increases. Anything they can do to make these people not look like the brutal meatheads the uninitiated public thinks they are is a positive step.