It didn’t take long for UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping to weigh in on the UFC 210 controversy between top contenders Chris Weidman and Gegard Mousasi.
As direct and bold as ever, ‘The Count’ said that Weidman deserved to lose in the co-main event because he was trying to manipulate the rules.
‘All-American’ received a time out from referee Dan Miragliotta after claiming that he was hit with an illegal knee in the second round. Slow motion replay footage, however, revealed that Mousasi’s knee was legal and Weidman was declared unfit to continue by New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) officials.
“The real talking point isn’t whether or not they were sloppy and how s**t Mousasi’s takedown defense was and, yet again, how sloppy Chris’s striking is. The controversy and the talking point is the end of the fight,” Bisping said on his new podcast, Believe You Me (h/t Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting).
“Weidman went in for yet another telegraphed takedown attempt, Mousasi kind of sprawled, kind of had him in a headlock position and from here, Chris tried to manipulate the rules. . . If a person has one hand on the floor, in the past that was a downed opponent. What people used to do was, they used to touch the floor with that hand and then they couldn’t be kneed in the face, when realistically, they didn’t need to put that hand on the floor, they were totally manipulating the rules so they couldn’t be kneed.
“At a weigh in, you try to make weight any way you can. At a fight, you’re supposed to be a man and f**king fight, not manipulate the rules and put one hand on the ground or two hands on the ground. Be a man, stand up, fight, go out there, tooth and nail, bite down on your mouthpiece and lets f**king do this.”
Weidman, a former UFC middleweight champ who has now lost three straight fights, will look to appeal the loss and has called for an immediate rematch against ‘The Dream Catcher’.
Mousasi, though, isn’t interested: “Weidman didn’t want to fight,” he said at the UFC 210 post-fight press conference. “The knees were legal. That’s not my fault. Don’t try to take advantage of the rules.”
Bisping continued to blast Weidman, claiming that he put on ‘an Oscar-winning performance’ after Mousasi landed the knee.
“Chris Weidman has only got himself to blame for that fight being finished. . . It appeared, initially, that it was two illegal strikes. So Weidman thought he had five minutes. But come on man, talk about an Oscar winning performance. He was laying it on thick. He thought he had five minutes but he was rolling around on the floor, clutching his head, [saying] ‘Uhhhhhh.’ He was putting on a real performance here. He even rolled back from being on his knees on his backside.
“Because he was acting so hurt and so injured, the commission said no, you’re not continuing to fight so they called it a TKO. I don’t know if that was the right decision but Weidman was trying to win via a disqualification or, at the very most, trying to get a point deducted from Mousasi.”
Recent audio footage, however, has revealed that Weidman may not have known what day it was after being hit, as coach Matt Serra said his student told NYSAC doctors the wrong date.
Bisping, 38, is expected to defend his middleweight title against Georges St-Pierre during international fight week in July.
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