Bisping: You can’t fight forever
Michael Bisping: “To be honest that does scare me. People say sometimes that I’m distracted. I’m not distracted. I’m being smart.”
UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping, 38, spoke recently on his Believe You Me podcast about what’s coming. He will next fight either Georges St-Pierre or the winner of the UFC 213 interim title fight between Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero.
My next fight, I don’t know where it’s going to be,” said Bisping, as transcribed by Damon Martin for FOX Sports. “It’s probably going to be unfortunately not GSP. It’s probably going to be the winner of Whittaker and Romero. I don’t know where that fight’s going to be and I see myself winning that fight because I see Whittaker winning that fight and I see myself beating Whittaker. If Romero wins, I see myself beating him as well. But I firmly believe that it will be Robert Whittaker.”
Win or lose that fight, I’ll probably have one more and I want that to be in London or Manchester or the U.K. I want it to be in England. I want to have my last fight, I want to say farewell. The fans for me in England have treated me so well, they really have. The MMA fans out there have really embraced me as one of their own of course and it made a different in my career. So I want my last fight to be in England.
Whether or not I win my next fight, which I plan on winning and believe I will, then I want to have one last fight in England, hopefully defending my belt for the third time and then probably call it a day. I mean that isn’t set in stone but in my mind that’s kind of where my head’s at.
At the end of the day, you can’t do this forever. Any sport you’ve got to know when to walk away, which is probably what Rashad Evans was talking about with Vitor on the post-fight show. Even though he got a win, it wasn’t the best win. Maybe you need to know when to walk away.
I am very, very hungry to compete It’s been a while now for me, what is it we’re in June, so it’s been like seven months since I fought so for me that is a long time. Throughout my career, I’ve always been very, very busy and I’m getting that itch. I really am. I want to get in there, I want to fight.
People talk s***, say I’m running and all this type of stuff. Fact of the matter is I’ll be back in there pretty soon, hopefully. By the end of the year, I will fight, that’s a guaranteed fact. As I say, it’s been a while and I’m getting that itch and I want to fight.
Too many fighters have no plan B. The Count has an alphabet. Among other efforts he owns a gym, works as a studio analyst for FOX Sports, and has appeared repeatedly in a television and film, most recently in Showtime’s ‘Twin Peaks’ and the British sports drama film ‘My Name Is Lenny’.
That was always something that always scared me about being a professional athlete, being a professional fighter – you see athletes, fighters in particular all over the world, that maybe once upon a time they were hot s***,” explained Bisping. “They had the world at their feet. They stopped fighting and it all comes crashing down and they end up broke and this and that.”
To be honest that does scare me. People say sometimes that I’m distracted. I’m not distracted. I’m being smart. I’m capitalizing while the iron is hot. That’s why I’m trying to do movies, I do the podcast, I do a radio show, I work on FOX, I have a gym, I have a lot of things going on. That’s because when I’m done, I want to be set up.