Roundtable: What's Next for Michael Bisping?
Kingdom MMA Staff
Following Wednesday devastating loss to Tim Kennedy, Kingdom MMA discusses what's next for the poster boy of UK MMA, Michael Bisping.
Ben Heather - @benheather
What's next for Michael Bisping? I've been asking myself this question for the past two days and I've not really got any closer to a definitive answer in my mind. What I have got are a couple of suggestions though:
1) Bisping needs to get affiliated with a big camp and have a big named head coach, someone like Greg Jackson or John Crouch would really help Michael get back to fighting how we know he can. On Wednesday night the Bisping we all know and love unfortunately didn't show up and not only this, from what I could hear (having watched it back a couple of times) his corner didn't seem to help him during the rounds. The best I heard was "come on Mike you got to get up" but didn't suggest any possible ways to help improve the position or to actually get up.
The whole reason we have been told Bisping moved to The States was to get the best training partners and facilities available, but since going out to The States has pretty much won a fight, lost a fight with no win streaks or consistency. Yes he is fighting better fighters - until Wednesday anyway, but if he wants to get that title shot now he needs to win at least 3 fights and against very tough opponents.
I still believe the old Bisping before his eye surgery would beat Kennedy 9/10 times.
2) Who's next for bisping. The best thing that could happen for Bisping is that Luke Rockhold beats Tim Boetsch next Saturday and then Bisping can try and trash talk his way in to that fight which Rockhold has been calling for, for a long time. A win over Rockhold keeps Bisping in the top 10 but he'd still have to win a couple more to get the title shot he craves so much.
It's now a long road to the top for Bisping and it's not going to be easy at all. As for when I expect to see him fight again, well he gets married next month so I think you will be looking at the end of summer August / September earliest, and I really hope we see the old Bisping return to the octagon.
Chris Mazella - @chrismarzella
Going into the Kennedy fight I practically knew it was going the distance. Bisping would either box his way to a decision or Kennedy would wrestle the win away from him.
Despite the work he has done over the years, Bisping's wrestling is still suspect. If you put him up against a high level wrestler who has wrestled their whole life then he's just not going to win.
You really can't put any argument about that fight. It was a snoozer. Don't get me wrong, Bisping was going for it, but when a guy has the sole intention of taking you down and laying on top of you for 25 minutes there's not much you can do. To be fair to Bisping, he was coming off of a serious, potentially career threatening injury. Although it didn't show, there's no telling the impact that had on him and his performance.
Bisping is now in a tricky spot. Where does he go from here? He's 2-3 in his last five fights and hasn't finished anybody in Mayhem Miller in December 2011. Despite all that, he is still a draw. On a weekly basis there are countless call out from up and down the middleweight division, so there will always be fights out there for him.
I've seen calls for him to retire. He is nowhere near that stage yet. He's still competitive in the division.
There are two fights I would really like to see him in now.
Firstly, Mark Munoz. Both guys are at a similar stage of the career. Mid thirties. coming off of losses, floating around in no-mans-land in the rankings with no realistic hope of an imminent title shot. Munoz still has the small matter of taking care of business when he meets Gegard Mousasi in Berlin on May 31. Regardless of the outcome of that fight, Bisping vs Munoz peaks my interest, it has the potential to be a war.
The alternative option would be Luke Rockhold. Rockhold sits in the top five, with a fight with Tim Boetsch set for UFC 172 in Baltimore. We already know Bisping and Rockhold don't like each other. Rockhold is the newer breed of fighter making his way up in the standings. Bisping may be the ultimate test for him and as far as Bisping is concerned, beating an up and coming fighter propels him back to where he wants to be.
For now let's end talk of Bisping retiring and hop that he get one of these two fights next.
Sam Heard - @samheard_
No one will ever doubt Michael Bisping’s ability to sell a fight but after Wednesday’s performance at the TUF Nations Finale there are those who now question his fighting ability. I was shocked when I read more than one person suggest that it might be time for The Count to hang up his gloves. Granted, his performance against Tim Kennedy was shockingly tentative, sluggish and generally underwhelming but we have on more than one occasion seen a fighter have a disappointing performance only to drop bombs in their next outing. It wasn’t so long ago that people were bleating on about how Shogun should retire after he was easily dispatched by Chael Sonnen only for the chorus of ‘OMG SHOGUN IS BACK’ to start on twitter after he hammered James Te Huna. Just because Mike lost a fight we all thought he should’ve won doesn’t mean his career is over. He was coming back from a long layoff having suffered a career-threatening injury so it was understandable that there were a few cobwebs.
Though the queue for a MW title shot seems to be getting ever longer, all Bisping can do for now is attempt to get back in the W column against a tough opponent and I believe that – dependent on their performances in Berlin – Bisping should be given the winner of Mark Munoz Vs. Gegard Mousasi. If Munoz wins this will mean they get to have the fight Bisping was forced to pull out of due to injury back in October while if Mousasi is victorious we will get to see a stand-up war between two high level strikers (rather than someone like Tim Kennedy lay on top of Bisping for 25-minutes). These are two match-ups I definitely like and were Bisping able to prevail over the winner of UFC FN 42’s Main Event he would definitely keep himself relevant in the division and get back some of his lost confidence.
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