Michael Bisping produced a stunning first-round knockout of Luke Rockhold to claim the middleweight championship at UFC 199 on Saturday.
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It’s not the loss Rockhold is having trouble dealing with.
25 Octagon fights and a decade into his storied UFC career, Michael “The Count” Bisping has finally reached the pinnacle.
Rockhold beat Bisping by second-round submission in November 2014 in Australia, but the new champion was quick to repeat, “every fight is different”, during fight week, and he was proven correct.
“A bit, yeah”, Rockhold said. “I have to give him respect”. “He’s just a maggot”. Out of those 18 percent of players who picked Bisping to win, 51 percent called it by knockout and he got the job done with a vicious first-round finish to put Rockhold away.
“You asked me, ‘Do you know where you are, do you know where you are?’ You’re a (expletive) dick”, interrupted Rockhold. Rising star Max Holloway, ranked number 4 in the division by the UFC, will take on number 5-ranked Ricardo Lamas in what’s sure to be a fast-paced crowd pleaser wherever the fight goes. Now it remains to be seen if the UFC goes with that first, or if they have Chris Weidman face Bisping in his first title defense.
“Obviously, I’m so happy right now”, he said in his post-fight interview.
“I believe I had control of that fight from the beginning”, Rockhold said later. The co-main event had Dominick Cruz defending his bantamweight title in a trilogy fight against Urijah Faber. He landed a handful of leg kicks and elevated one toward the head, which Bisping blocked and smiled at. “I had to trust my instincts and stick with my plan, especially when you’re facing a guy who has as much confidence in himself as Faber”.
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“I’ve visualized me knocking that dude out since I was 16 years old”, Garbrandt said of Cruz. Just because I know what I’m gonna do. The rivalry began all the way back in 2007 when the then-WEC Featherweight king Faber made short work of Cruz, submitting him with one of Team Alpha Male’s notorious guillotine chokes early in the very first round. “I’m going to go out there and I’m going to dominate this guy like he’s never been before”.
