{"id":225691,"date":"2017-03-02T10:19:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T18:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=225691"},"modified":"2017-04-14T14:16:01","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T21:16:01","slug":"michael-bisping-defends-choice-fight-georges-st-pierre-yoel-romero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/michael-bisping\/michael-bisping-defends-choice-fight-georges-st-pierre-yoel-romero\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bisping defends choice to fight Georges St-Pierre over Yoel Romero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Later this year, at a to-be-determined date, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping will defend his title. He will not, however, defend that title against <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/yoel-romero\/yoel-romero-reacts-to-michael-bisping-vs-georges-st-pierre-booking\/\">Yoel Romero<\/a>, Ronaldo &#8220;Jacare&#8221; Souza, Luke Rockhold, Chris Weidman, Gegard Mousasi, Robert Whittaker, or any other member of the middleweight top-10. Instead, he&#8217;ll defend it against former welterweight champ\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/fighter\/georges-st-pierre\">Georges St-Pierre<\/a>, who will be returning from a hiatus of several years.<\/p>\n<p>While the announcement of this fight generated excitement among some fans, it also generated <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/mma-community-reacts-to-georges-st-pierre-vs-michael-bisping-booking\/\">plenty of backlash<\/a>, as it deprives the middleweight division&#8217;s top contenders \u2013 namely Yoel Romero \u2013 of the title shots they&#8217;ve earned. Bisping, however, is not all that sympathetic. On a recent episode of UFC Tonight, the champ explained his choice to fight Georges St-Pierre over Yoel Romero. His words (via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/ufc\/story\/michael-bisping-fires-back-at-criticism-about-his-fight-against-georges-st-pierre-030117\">FoxSports<\/a>).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cI know there\u2019s people out there who are going to criticize this, saying that I should fight the No. 1 contender, guys like Yoel Romero, and they\u2019re absolutely right but I\u2019ll put this question to you right now. If you are Yoel Romero or Luke Rockhold or \u2018Jacare\u2019 [Souza] or any of these guys, if you were offered a fight with GSP, I know for a fact that you\u2019re going to take that fight so why shouldn\u2019t I do the same?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI deserve this payday. I deserve this fight. Not only to do with the payday, I want this fight for my legacy. I\u2019ve beat Dan Henderson. I\u2019ve beat Anderson Silva. Georges St-Pierre is also another legend that I want to add to my resume.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Needless to say, Michael Bisping is standing by his choice to defend the title against Georges St-Pierre rather than Yoel Romero. Who do you think wins this newly announced middleweight title fight? Does Bisping defend the throne, or does St-Pierre become one of just four fighters in UFC history <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/conor-mcgregor\/video-conor-mcgregor-wants-know-hes-still-2-division-champ\/\">to hold titles in two divisions<\/a>? Sound off, PENN Nation!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 3\/2\/2017.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Later this year, at a to-be-determined date, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping will defend his title. He will not, however, defend that title against Yoel Romero, Ronaldo &#8220;Jacare&#8221; Souza, Luke Rockhold, Chris Weidman, Gegard Mousasi, Robert Whittaker, or any other member of the middleweight top-10. Instead, he&#8217;ll defend it against former welterweight champ\u00a0Georges St-Pierre, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":207579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10140,10128,10179],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael Bisping defends choice to fight Georges St-Pierre over Yoel Romero | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michael Bisping has received plenty of backlash for defending his title against Georges St-Pierre rather than middleweight contender Yoel Romero.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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