Michael Bisping believes that Marvin Vettori would be UFC middleweight champion by now if it wasn’t for Israel Adesanya.
The Italian is currently ranked at #2 at 185lb following an impressive win over Paulo Costa in October. The fight reaffirmed his reputation as one of the toughest fighters in the UFC.
As a former champion himself, Bisping knows what it takes to conquer the UFC middleweight division.
“If it wasn’t for Israel Adesanya right now, he’d (Vettori) be the champ, definitely,” said Michael Bisping on a recent YouTube Q&A.
“He’s the next best guy at 185 in my opinion, he’s doing tremendous things. I’m a friend of Marvin’s, I think he’s tremendous. That fight he had against Paulo Costa was sensational. I called that fight, I was right there, he won that fight fair and square but Paulo Costa had a lot of success and some of the shots that Marvin ate, some of those kicks and punches and the power that Costa has, Marvin took every single f***ing one of them,” Bisping continued. (h/t SportsKeeda)
“(Vettori) never took a backwards step and fired right back every single time. It was a really inspiring performance. I was already a fan but after that I was like wow, this guy is incredible, man,” he added.
The win against Costa marked a return to form for Vettori following his loss to Adesanya via unanimous decision at UFC 263. ‘The Italian Dream’ has now lost twice to the champ, with the first encounter ending via split decision in 2018.
With Adesanya scheduled to defend his belt in a rematch with Robert Whittaker at UFC 271, Vettori has seemingly turned his attention elsewhere. Vettori took to Twitter last weekend to call out Jake Paul in the wake of his knockout win over Tyron Woodley.
Vettori wrote,
“So f****** embracing I feel like I gotta do it for the MMA world, pick one handicap @jakepaul and I’ll fight you with it lol.’
He then followed up with another tweet that said,
“Jake can we go at it? I wear 12 you wear 6 ounces @jakepaul“
So fucking embracing I feel like I gotta do it for the MMA world, pick one handicap @jakepaul and I’ll fight you with it lol
— Marvin Vettori (@MarvinVettori) December 19, 2021
Jake can we go at it? I wear 12 you wear 6 ounces @jakepaul
— Marvin Vettori (@MarvinVettori) December 19, 2021
Vettori seems legitimately keen to take on Paul under any ruleset, but he joins an increasingly long line of suitors wanting to take on the YouTube star. In the wake of his Woodley win, Paul called out a number of Vettori’s UFC colleagues including Nate Diaz and Kamaru Usman.
Who you think Vettori should fight next?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com