Michael Bisping had an incredible MMA career, culminating with a UFC middleweight title win, but he paid a hefty price for his success.

At the height of his career, he sustained a nasty eye injury, and now wears a prosthetic eye as a result. Bisping flaunted his false eye during a recent episode of his Believe You Me podcast, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Keep scrolling to see it.

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Bisping opened up on the extent of his eye injury in an interview with MMA Junkie this summer.

“My vision (in my right eye) was pretty much non-existent since 2013,” Bisping said. “I was just about able to scrape past the medicals. It was definitely touch and go. I was always terrified of doing a full training camp, then being turned away by the commission doctor.

“It was difficult. To pass the medical test, you’ve got to have 20-200 vision, which is classed as clinically blind anyway, so it’s not very good – it’s not a very hard mark to pass. Some days I could, some days I couldn’t. But fortunately, I was just able to scrape by.

“People always say: ‘How did you fight with only one eye?’ And I always say: ‘With great (expletive) difficulty!’”

Michael Bisping says this injury nearly drove him to retire, but he ultimately decided to stick with it and realized championship level success as a result.

Of course, it wasn’t easy.

“Prior to having the belt, the thought of retiring never entered my mind,” Bisping said. “I look back now, and I think, ‘Wow, what was this guy thinking?’ I see some old fights, and I’m thinking, ‘This idiot’s out there fighting with only one eye, and he’s talking like that,’ so I don’t know where all that came from. But, no regrets.”

Needless to say, Michael Bisping is a tough, tough dude, and his accomplishments are even more impressive considering he effectively only had one eye for a huge portion of his career.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 10/3/2019.