After running through Jason Miller at The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, some felt that Michael Bisping’s cardio was appearing to fail him. He looked a bit more tired than usual given his notoriety as having very solid endurance.
Bisping says that his cardio was not a problem (via MMA Junkie):
“I don’t think the cardio was an issue,”
“I don’t think anyone’s cardio was the issue. Did you see the pace of the fight? You see how many punches I was throwing?”
“My cardio wasn’t an issue. Far from it. I feel it was a fast pace, and whilst I was tired, I was able to keep the pace up.”
One thing that is getting overlooked is that through 13:34 of fighting action, Bisping had landed more strikes (150) than Dan Henderson (113) in his now legendary UFC 139 fight with Mauricio Rua, a fight that went a full 25 minutes. Bisping also threw only 49 less strikes (244 to 293) than the very active Rua. That’s not to say that the TUF finale was on the same level of being a grueling war, but it’s worth noting that throwing 244 strikes, working on the ground and in the clinch is going to wear out most men. It was a very, very high level of offensive output.
In the end, Bisping got a very important win and his cardio was good enough to get the job done.