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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Monday madness with Michael Bisping

By Zach Arnold | September 10, 2007

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So far, the amount of North American media coverage for the UFC 75 (London) event after it took place feels similar to the coverage for UFC’s Ireland event in June. In other words, pretty light and not very much of it. There was an avalanche of previews heading into the show, but not much reporting afterwards.

It’s not Rampage vs. Henderson that has fans and media members talking, albeit that fight did generate some press coverage. Instead, the focus is on the Michael Bisping vs. Matt Hamill fight, in which Hamill seemingly finds himself a huge winner PR-wise for losing by a controversial judges’ decision. From Fox Sports:

Behaving atrociously in the post-fight press conference, Bisping would not accept criticism for his performance, and verbally abused members of the press who questioned his victory.

“Of course I (expletive) won,” said the agitated Brit. “I gave him the first, then I took the second and third. I gave him an (expletive) boxing lesson.”

Bloody and bruised, Bisping was apparently the only one in the room who thought so.

FOXSports.com has now learned that Bisping is likely to go down to middleweight after this fight.

Dana White had this to say about the judges that worked the UFC 75 event in London. Take note of the heat UFC is getting for the decision to run another show in an area with no official regulation and how White is responding:

“These controversies that come up don’t mean a thing to me and they roll off my back with no problem because I know it’s all (expletive),” he said. “We’re the top dogs and every little thing we do is news and people create these wacky (expletive) conspiracies. The bottom line is, we’ve embraced regulation, we want the sport to be regulated everywhere, but I’m not going to stop putting fights in the U.K. just because they don’t have a commission.”

Plus, a writer for The Telegraph makes the case for banning UFC.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. The Flint Journal (MI): Inside the Cage – providing a little blood for the crowd
  2. MMA HQ: UFC 75 recap
  3. The Orange County Register: Orange County fighters impressive from Las Vegas to the UK
  4. The Dayton Daily News (OH): Cincinnati native Matt Hamill is snubbed in London event
  5. MSNBC: Rampage beats Henderson to unify the 205 pound titles
  6. NBC Sports: Rampage becomes MMA’s 1st undisputed champion
  7. The Baltimore Sun: Rampage on, Hamill robbed
  8. Javno: Decision for Cro Cop – to continue or not?
  9. Fight Report: Vitali Klitschko pulls out of the Jameel McCline fight
  10. The Fightworks Podcast: Radio show discussing the Red Belt BJJ movie
  11. Inside the Cage Radio: Interview with Mauro Ranallo
  12. The Newark Star-Ledger (NJ): Loving Carlos Moreno wants to give his family a good ‘belt’
  13. Sherdog: Cage Force tournaments progress
  14. Komikazee: Fedor still has plenty to prove
  15. MMA Weekly: Fighters and promoters speak out against BMA
  16. British Boxing: UFC 75 – Bisping should count himself lucky
  17. The Daily Star (UK): Count’s First Class
  18. The Houston Chronicle: Diego Sanchez relocates, seeking to rebound

Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 44 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

44 Responses to “Monday madness with Michael Bisping”

  1. Xenos says:

    Bisping is an ass.

  2. Luke says:

    I see Michael Bisping getting more heat for his behaviour, than UFC is getting for running in a region with no sanctioning.

  3. That Telegraph article was actually well-written and not your usual fare. Interesting read.

    Bisping’s behaviour at the press conference did raise a few eyebrows…

  4. Preach says:

    Klitschko had surgery the same day the injury occured (saturday morning), so Fight Report is a bit late. He dislocated an intevertebral disc in his back, which, unfortunately is rather common for tall people (I had this happen to myself in april during training, but thankfully didn’t need surgery).He’s expected to get back into training in 4 to 5 weeks, so his comeback fight should be either in late December or January.

  5. Sam Scaff says:

    Hahah, this is exactly why Vitali Klitschko retired in the first place. He postponed his fight with Rahman, I think, 3 times for injuries, before just giving up the sport altogether. Now for this to happen on his comeback fight, AGAIN, that must be really demoralizing.

    He should have stayed in retirement. Wlad is coming into his own, if only he would start fighting top competition.

  6. GassedOut says:

    Matt Hamill won, period. 30-27 in my mind unless I’m generous to Bisping. I like Mike, but that was low-class maneuvering after his win.

  7. Captain says:

    I’m starting to wonder how long the Fertitta’s are going to let Dana act like this. I mean, I agree with him in spirit. Bad decisions happen and people will always come up with conspiracy theories that don’t hold much water. But Dana’s quotes have just been getting worse and worse lately.

  8. LR says:

    Am I the only one who thinks all the expletives he uses in interviews is somewhat stupid and makes Dana White appear less like a class act and more like a jerk?

  9. Psygone says:

    I thought thats just how fight promoters talk.

  10. No, it definitely makes him look like a moron.

  11. LR says:

    A lot of fight promoters are pretty classy and do all their smack talk behind the scenes. Dana just lets it fly on camera. I read interviews from credible news sources and half the interview as [expletive] in it. It seems very unprofessional to me.

  12. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Dana’s a guy from Connecticut who dropped out of U Mass Boston after two years, then worked as a fight trainer and operated a few gyms.

    In the space of less than eight years, he’s gone from that to being the head of a global fight company with annual revenues in excess of a billion dollars that pays it’s top fighters millions per fight in total compensation (including PPV shares etc), an organization that has the top rated show on a basic cable network and that operates over a dozen events a year and has recently bought the corpse of it’s last major rival.

    Maybe he’s out of his depth, but it’s hard to blame the Fertittas for looking at that and thinking he’s done a pretty good job despite his PR failings.

    At some point, maybe they change their mind, but my guess would be that they already have their casino guys operating the business back end out of sight, and Dana’s job at this point is primarily to be the public face of UFC. He’s there to be Xtreme and controversial. It’s his job. He brings the PR, he keeps people talking. He’s one of the few constants that the UFC can keep out there. When Chuck loses and practically disappears by the time Rampage fights again (Chuck, where you at?), Dana’s still there mixing it up.

  13. David says:

    Jeremy has a good point.

  14. RGana says:

    Hamil won the fight, it wasn’t even close. Sometimes its as simple as it looks. “It was fixed” Anybody making another argument also thinks we will find wmd’s in Iraq. Funny thing is i bet most of us weren’t suprised Bisping got the fix, I was sort of expecting it, which is REALLY sad. UFC is not a sport, its a show and this proves it. I’m over it, officially. I’m one of the reasons for the low pay per view numbers at the last UFC, I’m gone and never going to spend a $ on UFC again, I am not alone I guess. Expect the UFC to see more declines down the road, the summit has been reached.

  15. Psygone says:

    “I don’t think Don ever will [retire]. I don’t want him to because there’s a lot of resentment of him and that favors me. These younger promoters who try to project an image of integrity are full of (expletive) anyway.” -Bob Aurm

  16. MSNBC really went all out on writing that piece…

  17. Grape Knee High says:

    While I am in the “Hammill clearly won” camp, I don’t see how a fix is probable or even helps the UFC at all.

    If Bisping wins handily, no fix needed. Whereas if Bisping does not win handily, what does a fix get them exactly? Nothing. MMA is not boxing and fighters do NOT need unblemished records to vie for a title. On top of that Bisping is not, and will not be, ready for a title shot for at least a year if not longer. Having him lose now is meaningless to his future title prospects.

    The only thing a fix gets the UFC is heat for the fix. Which, barring a total brain meltdown on the part of Zuffa, guarantees that a fix was never in place.

    I think what we’re seeing is that the judges have varying criteria and also have different sightlines to the fight, both of which can vary the extent to which the fight is judged.

    For example, take a look at Hendo being “rocked” in the fourth round. On TV, it was obvious Hendo got the better shot and that he simply slipped or fell over. To Goldberg/Rogan they thought Hendo got “rocked” by what they didn’t see was just a glancing shot. Judges can be affected by this as well.

  18. Nick says:

    Agreed the Telegraph article is different to the usual “ban mma” fare but it’s still ludicrous. It makes the usual journalistic deceptions e.g. unspecified “numerous studies”, a reference to human cockfighting with the nuance that it’s accepted as an appropriate metaphor, cloaking personal prejudice by selecting sources who believe the same thing, passing the BMA off as something resembling unbiased etc.

    It also doesn’t construct an argument capable of supporting the conclusion. For a start, it doesn’t move from the proposition “(some kinds of) violence is bad” to “ban this type of violent activity (as opposed to some other way to reduce the alleged increase in violence it may or may not cause in wider society)”.

    ‘course the main problem is it assumes violence is always wrong and that’s a proposition to be proven rather than declared

  19. Psygone says:

    Well stated Nick…one problem I do see is this trend (blame Ortiz v shamrock) to personalize fights to sell tickets, I can see how to the casual viewer the violence is synonymous with malice.

  20. D.Capitated says:

    Making fights “personal” has been a part of promotion since, well, the beginning of promotion. Getting rid of that aspect won’t change the fact that combat sports are inherently dangerous in ways that other sports aren’t.

  21. Psygone says:

    I am not advocating censorship as a solution to anything, just painting the picture I think Mr. Jr. Dr. Pembeton sees.

  22. D.Capitated says:

    I think its very simplistic to believe that the medical community has issues with MMA or boxing purely on the basis that they are of the philisophical belief that violence should not be promoted. That’s a bit like saying that we’re fighting against Islamic fundamentalist jihadists because they hate freedom or don’t believe in democracy.

  23. Maybe i was alittle smashed sat. night but were the English fans booing Bisping? Amazing. That what he gets for being a dick

  24. It’s the age old thing … fighting is dangerous so we shouldn’t allow it. But everything is dangerous. We take risks smoking, we take risks drinking, we take risks driving. You can’t stop people from doing stuff just because it might end up hurting them. Fighters make a choice to do what they do. It’s up to the medical community to highlight and present the facts and consequences to people, not to take away people’s right to choose what they will or won’t do.

  25. Manos says:

    MMA junkie is running a story with about a UG post by Jeff Mullen wherein he explains the Bisping decision

    http://mmajunkie.com/2007/09/10/ufc-75-judge-jeff-mullen-explains-bisping-hamill-score/#comments

    “Mullen argues that he had a clear view of Bisping early in the second round — a view that the television camera and the UFC broadcasters didn’t have — and that the local fighter “was landing the jab again and again and not getting hit.” Additionally, he argues that Bipsing was “using an active guard trying to turn for armbars and sweeps” in the second round while Hamill was “doing very little on top.“

    Both Jeff Mullen and Cecil Peoples scored the fight 29-28 (awarding Bisping the second and third rounds) while British judge Chris Watts gave all three rounds to Hamill.

    In the end, it was a controversial split-decision for Bisping.

    “By the way, Mario Yamasaki thought Bisping won rounds two and three,” Mullen wrote. “Mario was the ref and had a better view than any of us.”

    You may not agree with his decision but at least you can see where he’s coming from.

  26. D. Capitated says:

    It’s the age old thing … fighting is dangerous so we shouldn’t allow it. But everything is dangerous. We take risks smoking, we take risks drinking, we take risks driving. You can’t stop people from doing stuff just because it might end up hurting them. Fighters make a choice to do what they do. It’s up to the medical community to highlight and present the facts and consequences to people, not to take away people’s right to choose what they will or won’t do.

    Society restricts all sorts of behaviour which is seen as being detrimental. You mention driving, an interesting choice given that there are seat belt laws, laws regarding use of cell phones in an automobile, speed limits, emissions standards, crash test standards, traffic lights, use of turn signals, et al. I don’t think you understand the difference here between boxing, kickboxing, or MMA and all other sports.

  27. klown says:

    Yahoo report on seedy website that features bare-knuckle Brazilian vale tudo along with skimpily clad women firing automatic weapons and…. cock fighting videos.

    http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/41678/playing-chicken

  28. Dru Down says:

    “Society restricts all sorts of behaviour which is seen as being detrimental. You mention driving, an interesting choice given that there are seat belt laws, laws regarding use of cell phones in an automobile, speed limits, emissions standards, crash test standards, traffic lights, use of turn signals, et al. I don’t think you understand the difference here between boxing, kickboxing, or MMA and all other sports.”

    This seems like a perfect analogy. Drving is an inherently dangerous activiy, so the regulatory body has put rules and restrictions in place that reduce the risk. In the same way, fighting is inherently dangerous, so the various regulatory bodies have put rules and restrictions in place to reduce the chance of serious injury.

    The point is that rather than making driving illegal, we regulate it- the same should be true of MMA.

  29. The Gaijin says:

    Mullen’s whole need to explain himself reeks of total damage control. Like I said before, no one is (or should be) claiming conspiracy…but Mullen’s knee jerk reaction and “well…Mario said he thought…” come off a little wrong.

    The whole point is that: (a) it would have been semi-disastrous had the guy they’ve been putting a big push behind lost in his hometown and (b) the three judges were hired and paid by Zuffa (b/c there is no commission over there). Bisping was their “star” for all their UFC UK events, regardless he’s fucked his drawing ability with the way he behaved after the fight and looked like an a-hole.

    It’s just terrible optics is the point and doesn’t look good on them.

  30. RGana says:

    BISPING “was landing the jab again and again and not getting hit.”

    He was throwing defensive combos only to escape the constant pressure put on him. Anybody who has been in a fight has done this to deter a stalker. Bisping was running for his life the entire fight, Hamil is a very scary guy.

  31. Dru Down got it 100% re: regulation.

  32. Manos says:

    @ Gaijin

    A)I don’t think it would have been disastrous if the hometown hero lost. It hasn’t ever been in the past that I can think of, so there’s no basis for that suspicious statement aside from typical conspiracy theorist speculation. Not surprising, really.

    B) Granted.

    I wish UFC would stop doing shows in unregulated territory. It hurt Pride’s credibility and it’s not doing them any good either.

    Not that the casual fan ever seems to notice…

  33. The Gaijin says:

    @

    (A) while semi-distastrous might have been the wrong adjective; i think when the bell rang to end the fight…there was that eerie ominous air of the decision that was quite likely to be read.

    Again…just goes to the bad optics point. They finally have a unified champion and its getting about ZERO press, while this “debacle” is garnering any and all publicity around the event. Not good.

    On an unrelated note – what do you think the UFC’s chances of getting Warpath to fight against Cro Cop for his next fight? There’s just no one I can envisage that’s in the UFC right now that they’d be comfortable in having him fight given that he’s still got 3 fights at around $350K left on his contract and Reuben never seem to shy away from taking a good beating. At this point would CC still be a heavy favorite?
    One more loss and they might as well pay him his $700k and try to move on – beyond damaged goods.

  34. klown says:

    Gaijin,

    I give him one last chance to rebound. He claims he broke his rib in round 1 and had difficulty breathing. He also took several knees to the groin from that monster. I tremble in fear at the thought of that. Give him Heath, and if he wins, Arlovski or Sylvia. If he loses, retire him.

    Now picture Kongo vs Gonzaga!

  35. D.Capitated says:

    This seems like a perfect analogy. Drving is an inherently dangerous activiy, so the regulatory body has put rules and restrictions in place that reduce the risk. In the same way, fighting is inherently dangerous, so the various regulatory bodies have put rules and restrictions in place to reduce the chance of serious injury.

    No, its a lousy analogy. Driving does not necessitate bodily harm to anyone. Improper driving can, sure. MMA and boxing are entirely about causing bodily harm to win. The GMA is looking at boxing and MMA the same way it does heroin use.

  36. D.Capitated says:

    I give him one last chance to rebound. He claims he broke his rib in round 1 and had difficulty breathing. He also took several knees to the groin from that monster. I tremble in fear at the thought of that. Give him Heath, and if he wins, Arlovski or Sylvia. If he loses, retire him.

    He broke his rib because he got hit. Cro Cop’s biggest problem as he gets older is that his speed and reflexes diminish, which is awful for a striker.

    Now picture Kongo vs Gonzaga!

    Uhhh, Gonzaga takes Kongo down and pounds the shit out of him. You’ve seen Kongo fight before, right?

  37. Manos says:

    I think they need to go back in time to the birth of Crocop’s career and feed him a steady diet of pro wrestlers.

  38. UFC should sight Mark Coleman and have him fight Cro Cop.

  39. Zack says:

    I’d still pay to see Cro Cop vs Arlovski.

  40. The Gaijin says:

    “He broke his rib because he got hit. Cro Cop’s biggest problem as he gets older is that his speed and reflexes diminish, which is awful for a striker.”

    While this is true, I find it pretty hard to believe THAT is the explanation for his poor performance.

    I don’t think he’s drastically trailing off to like 40% of his abilities in a two-year span. I think it’s just his headcaseness…and when he was in PRIDE they’d set him up to squash some CAN to get the confidence back in him. In this case I feel Kongo was to be his “can”, but he’s just lost his mental game…he needs GSP’s shrink (no lie, he needs a sports psych).

    And as for the Bisping thing, the more I think about it – win or not, they’re fucked with him. Regardless of him getting a W on the ledger, in the court of public opinion its clear that he lost and everyone knows it. He was exposed and really he was exposed by someone who’s probably a T-30 205er. He’s not going to be getting any sort of push at that weight class with all the top guys they’re bringing in. And really thinking of it, I don’t know if he’d hang with the top guys at 185 either…his striking his so friggin overrated, his chin is awful and man oh man he has ZERO head movement (case in point, MATT HAMILL was teeing off on him and scoring).

  41. […] in the Matt Hamill vs. Michael Bisping fight. A site commenter labels the PR blitz by the judges as ‘damage control.’ And those of you critical of the decision? Whiners. Who wins the re-match? Dave Meltzer says the […]

  42. D.Capitated says:

    While this is true, I find it pretty hard to believe THAT is the explanation for his poor performance.

    I don’t think he’s drastically trailing off to like 40% of his abilities in a two-year span. I think it’s just his headcaseness…and when he was in PRIDE they’d set him up to squash some CAN to get the confidence back in him. In this case I feel Kongo was to be his “can”, but he’s just lost his mental game…he needs GSP’s shrink (no lie, he needs a sports psych).

    Here’s a reality check for some people:

    -Cro-Cop is 3-4 against legitimate heavyweights in the last 2 years.

    -Two of those wins came against the same guy. The other win was against Eddie Sanchez.

    -Lots of questions were posed about Cro-Cop’s future prior to the the OWGP given two losses in his last three, all of which were apparently forgotten by KOing a fat judoka and a pro wrestler.

    -Mirko is an old 33 for a fighter, having numerous amateur boxing bouts, kickboxing bouts in Europe, his K-1 career, and obviously his MMA career.

    Frankly, Mirko is in no position to be a title contender now or even in the near future. He was given a kickboxer that was KOed by Gilbert Yvel in embarassing fashion. With his pedigree, it should have been no contest. Now he’s on the outside looking way in. Apart from fighting Frank Mir or just flat retiring, I don’t know what purpose he serves the sport these days.

  43. Mick S says:

    To respond to a few of the comments up at the moment, RGana the Bisping v Hammil fight was not a fix, the UFCs knows that would do no good for them and its just plain stupid to think they would do this. Its interesting everyone claims Mike got the ‘hometown rub’ even though it was in london not liverpool and the one british judge actually scored the fight in Hammils favour. Having re-watched the fight several times I only think more now that the decision was correct, the commentators biased comments have swayed alot of people and there was several times Bisping caught Hammil with repeated head shots that the commentators completely ignored. Apart from the first round Bisping controlled the floor and stopped Hammil getting any real offence once he had been taken down, plus Bisping was pretty much back on his feet as quick as he had been takendown most times so this has to score in Mikes favour. The third round is a clear points win for Mike, Hammil’s cardio is terrible and he could hardly hold his hands up and Mike landed alot of punches in this round. I agree that the after fight comments were quite arrogant but after reading his apology and explanation of what had happened after the show with his father I think people should get off his back, I mean he’s already asked for a re-match to prove he can beat him so he obviously isnt worried about facing Hammil again due to the lack of damage hammil caused after the first round, and if Hammil really is this great fighter everyone says then he’ll beat him, but I doubt that will happen. A longer stretch training with Rampage Jackson at Big Bear should prepare Bisping for that fight and I fully expect him to beat Hammil again hopefully on US soil so all this Fix/Home Favourite rubbish can be put to bed. This was also a fight that had it happened during TUF3 I think Bisping would have knocked him out as Hammil had nothing but takedowns at that time, for gods sake he got kicked by Kenndel Grove and sat in his room for 4 days sulking after.
    Big props to Hammil though for his after fight comments, he may not have had any class talking going into the fight but he showed class after.

  44. Mick S says:

    Oh and D.Capitated Bispings striking isnt awful and he does have a good chin, check out any of his previous fights and that will prove it. The mans never been beaten in any competition, MMA or Kick Boxing.

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