It was the biggest moment in Michael Bisping’s career, when he shockingly knocked out Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 and took his 185-pound championship. The fight was followed by heated trash talk from both competitors that escalated and had officials separating them after the post-fight press conference.
During the latest episode of The MMA Hour, the outspoken Brit talked about how the post-fight beef came about and regrets the part he took in it. He explains that after shaking Rockholds hand, he completed a victory lap and passed by Rockhold again. Just as he approached the fallen champion and told him ‘I love you bud’, Rockhold responded aggressively by barking back ‘I’ve already shaken your hand’, according to Bisping.
That’s were the beef started again.
“I said a couple of things too 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.”
“We did get into it back and forth but as you can see I was very jovial throughout the time of course. It’s easy for me to be jovial because I had won, I had gotten revenge and put him in his place. I said everything I said was going to come true, I made that happen.”
“But I do regret the negative connotations that surrounded that.” (Transcription via MMAFighting.com)
Bisping knocked out Rockhold in the first round of UFC 199’s main event. He is campaigning for a rematch against number-13 ranked Dan Henderson since, who managed to viciously knock out the Brit at UFC 100 year ago. Credible title contenders such as Ronaldo Souza and Chris Weidman have heavily criticized the idea, though.
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