This past weekend, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping stepped into the Octagon in Manchester, England to defend his middleweight championship against MMA legend Dan Henderson in what was set to be Henderson’s last fight before retiring from MMA.
The fight was an extremely competitive one, with Henderson dropping Bisping in both the first and second rounds. Despite that, Bisping poured out an incredible volume of strikes throughout the entire fight, landing an impressive amount of significant strikes from bell to bell.
Ultimately, when Bruce Buffer read the judges scorecards, Bisping was given the unanimous decision win to retain the middleweight strap.
Following the fight, Bisping called out Chris Weidman, Luke Rockhold, Yoel Romero, and Jacare Souza in his post-fight Octagon interview. While his speech was an impressive one, former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, who is set to fight Yoel Romero at UFC 205, thought the situation was embarrassing. He spoke on The MMA Hour:
“That guy had it in his head before the fight, and told himself, ‘after I dominate Dan Henderson, I’m going to get on the mic and call out all these four guys and say certain things about them, and it’s going to look really cool,’” Weidman said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “But the guy, he shouldn’t have done that when you barely beat the No. 14 in the division. … to get on the mic like that and call out the top four guys like he just did something impressive, I really thought Dan Henderson should have got his hand raised, so I was embarrassed for him. He can say my name a billion times and call me all the names he wants. That guy does not affect me.”
Many members of the MMA community scored the fight in Henderson’s favor given that he dropped Bisping in both the first and second rounds. Weidman explained why he too scored the fight in Henderson’s favor:
“I scored it for Henderson. I thought he won the first round maybe 10-8. I think at least one of the judges should have given him a 10-8, I don’t know why that wasn’t even a thought, and then the second round, I thought he won, yes, he was getting pitter pattered most of the round, but he almost finished the fight again in the second round, then he dropped him again. I think if you almost finish the fight you win the round, it doesn’t matter how long you were losing the round. He was never in danger in the second round so I thought he won that round. Then I also thought he won the fifth round.”