Bisping: I regret exchanges with Rockhold at UFC 199…a little bit
Bisping today joined the MMA Hour and reflected on the fight and his interactions with Rockhold after the win and admitted he wished he handled it differently.
Michael Bisping had just come off the biggest win of his career at UFC 199 and was a little fired up when he exchanged words with Luke Rockhold in the cage and at the post-fight press conference. Bisping today joined the MMA Hour and reflected on the fight and his interactions with Rockhold after the win and admitted he wished he handled it differently:
“Let me clarify my side of the story,” he said during an appearance on The MMA Hour. “What happened was I went over to Luke and, like I always do, win or lose you always shake your opponent’s hand. And I went and shook his hand and it was heartfelt. And then I was having my moment, and I was walking around the Octagon. The Octagon is kind shaped like a circle, with square sides.
“And I was having my moment, and I found myself walking past Luke again, so I wasn’t just going to walk past him and ignore him. I walked past him and I went to reiterate my sentiments, saying listen, again, I love you bud, and he said, ‘I’ve already shaken your hand,’ really aggressively, and he gave me a dirty look. I said excuse me? ‘I’ve already shaken your hand,’ and I said, ‘so that’s how you’re going to be — you’re going to be a sore loser? Well the pardon my French, but go eff yourself.’”
“I said a couple of things to because I thought he was being an a**hole,” Bisping said. “And yeah, I do kind of regret that a little bit even still. I wish I would have been the bigger man and ignored it and laughed and whatever, but I’m emotional guy and it was a lot of talk going into that fight. He discredited me completely.
“So sparks flew, then afterwards in the press conference, I walked it…and as I was walking in he was talking about how he was going to kill me, he’s calling me a maggot, [saying]‘I’m going to destroy this guy, I’m going to absolutely kill Michael Bisping,’ and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute. Buddy. Buddy. You just got knocked out two minutes ago, just relax.”