Michael Bisping – Manchester’s Pride Comes Home

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By Thomas Gerbasi

“Obviously my last fight didn’t go as planned, and that’s a bit of an understatement.”

When Michael Bisping discusses his knockout loss to Dan Henderson in July, he doesn’t do it with a sense of detachment, doesn’t airbrush what happened, and doesn’t come up with a laundry list of excuses for being stopped in the second round by the former two-division PRIDE champion.

He lost and it’s going to be part of his history, but that’s precisely the point – it is history now, and he can’t do anything about what happened that night. But he is going to be bombarded with questions about the Henderson bout as he prepares for Denis Kang this Saturday in Manchester, and he takes each of them with grace while re-living the one fight of his otherwise stellar career that he’d like to forget.

“To be honest I don’t have any excuses,” said Bisping, 18-2. “I got hit with a good shot and I got knocked out. I thought I was doing pretty well in the fight. I lost the first round. I was winning the second up until I got caught, and if I didn’t get caught I could have gone on to win that fight. It’s not like I was getting completely manhandled and destroyed and being punked. But I did get caught and knocked out.”

The UFC 100 bout will end up on Henderson’s eternal highlight reel as he defeated his coaching rival from season nine of The Ultimate Fighter with the sledgehammer right hand that has taken out many an opponent over the years. Bisping didn’t expect to join that list, and he admits that he “was pretty happy” with his preparation – both mental and physical – for the fight, but he did look flat in Las Vegas that night, something that shouldn’t be surprising considering he had trained up to 15 weeks for the bout.

“It was a big fight, and with combined with The Ultimate Fighter, I had a lot of free time, so I started training 15 weeks out for that fight, which was absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “Of course, that wasn’t the plan – the plan was to get a little bit in shape, but then I’d go to the gym, break a sweat, and then I’d just get into it. Before I know it, I’m in a hard training session. The next day I’d do the same, and then its three weeks before the fight, and I’ve been going ten weeks hard already. You can’t really cut back then.”

By then, it’s too late, and while a different approach to training camp might not have kept Bisping upright when Henderson landed his perfect right to the jaw, the Brit does expect things to be different this time around against Kang. He plans on coming into fight week a little heavier than usual to keep his strength up, and if he learned anything from the Henderson bout, and maybe even his previous fight against Chris Leben, it’s that he’s at his best not when he’s sticking and moving, but when he’s attacking.

“Mentally for this fight, I’ve got to come out there and push the pace,” said Bisping. “My best performances in the past have been when I’ve come out and been the aggressor. So I’ve got to go back to that and back to my old self, if you will. If you’ve seen my old fights, I’ve come out there and I’ve just gone straight through guys, finishing most of them in the first round. My first ten professional fights, I only went past the first round once, so that’s what I’ve got to go back to – I’ve got to find that fire inside me and just get that ruthless killer instinct back.”

It’s a good thing to hear from the 30-year old middleweight, and not what’s usually first on the agenda for a fighter following a knockout loss. But Bisping isn’t the gun-shy type, and truth be told, if he had his way, he would have been back in the Octagon a lot sooner than Saturday night.

“I wanted to fight ASAP, so it feels like it’s been forever, a very long time since I fought Dan Henderson,” he said. “I’ve been itching to get back in there and get back to my winning ways. You’re only as good as your last fight and unfortunately in my last fight I got knocked out. So that’s part of the reason why I’ve been so keen to fight again and put that behind me. This is going to be my second fight this year, and for me, I’ve been way too inactive.”

That inactivity can be blamed on his stint at a coach opposite Henderson on TUF, one of those Faustian bargains where a fighter gets great exposure on weekly television, but also has to put his career on hold for six weeks of filming and then 12 weeks of the show being aired. There are obvious plusses and minuses to each side, and for Bisping, one of the minuses was becoming a villain of sorts to some fans of Team United States.

“I really don’t see what I did that was so bad,” he said. “I was supportive of my team and tried to get them to win their fights? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? I got into a couple arguments with (Team US’) DaMarques Johnson, but I don’t really see what the big deal was.”

There really wasn’t any, but for some reason, some fans have just made their mind up about Bisping and won’t get past those impressions. Or as he puts it even better, “I definitely polarize a lot of people.”

So while some fans would seemingly take the proverbial bullet for their fighter, the other side “would probably fire the bullet,” laughs Bisping, who takes the criticism with a grain of salt, knowing that as long as he’s true to himself and those around him, everything else will work itself out.

“I am who I am,” he said. “I speak my mind, but a lot of what I say sometimes is tongue in cheek and I think sometimes people don’t get that and they just think I’m being arrogant and cocky. I don’t class myself as arrogant. I’m still learning my trade, but you have to have confidence. What do the people want me to say? Do they want me to say I’m fighting someone really tough as Dan and I’m gonna get my ass kicked? I can’t say that. I believe I’m gonna win the fight and sometimes it upsets people. I don’t know what to say to those people; I’m just trying to go about my business and take care of my kids. As long as the people closest to me in my life are happy, as long as I’m doing right by my kids, my team, and everyone close to me, then I’m doing a pretty good job. Obviously there are fans out there who are fantastic and really support me. Some of the messages I get through my website are pretty incredible. People say how I’ve changed their lives and really inspired them to get fit, and how my success has inspired them to change their lives. That’s amazing and I answer every single email. But not everybody feels that way and I think The Ultimate Fighter did it even more. The people that like me liked me even more, and the people that hated me hated me even more.”

No matter what side of the Michael Bisping debate you’re on though, the fact remains that he’s still a world-class fighter that you’re going to have to deal with, because he has no plans on leaving anytime soon. Just look at his opponent for Saturday’s bout, and you’ll know instantly that his intentions are to get back in title contention sooner rather than later.

“I’ve never questioned an opponent in my life and certainly not in the UFC,” said Bisping. “Initially, there was talk of me fighting Wanderlei Silva, and I said fine. I wanted to get back in there with someone of that stature and caliber to try to put the previous fight to rest and make up for it. That fight didn’t happen, so then they said Denis Kang, and I said ‘right, perfect.’ These are the guys I want to fight. I don’t want to go back down to fighting guys who are on their way up; I want to fight guys who are at the top of their game, and Denis Kang is one of those fighters. He’s been around for a long time, he’s very experienced, and he’s fought some great guys. But I feel I match up well with him. He’s made some comments that he’s definitely better than me, but that’s what makes it a fight. I tend to disagree with him, so we’ll see what happens on the night.”

On that night, just days away, Bisping will walk into the same MEN Arena in Manchester that he did in April of 2007. Back then, he was the hope of British MMA and the hope of the UFC in Europe. He did his job that night by beating Elvis Sinosic, and since then, he has paved the way for the Dan Hardys, Paul Daleys, Terry Etims, Paul Kellys, and Ross Pearsons of his nation. On Saturday, he just has to worry about himself. This fight is for him and his career, but he won’t be alone, and that gives him the extra ‘oomph’ he needs to get amped up for Denis Kang.

“Wherever I fight, I ultimately get in there and fight by myself, but being in Manchester and having the crowd behind me is going to be beneficial,” he said. “In the past when I fought in England, the crowd really does get behind me and I feel it’s always had a positive impact. It’s gonna spur me on.”