Bisping: Marvin Vettori would be UFC middleweight champ if not for Israel Adesanya

UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping believes Marvin Vettori would be middleweight champion if not for Israel Adesanya.

Vettori, 28, has dropped two decision losses to Adesanya but he was competitive in both matchups and wasn’t intimidated by Adesanya in the slightest.

Bisping is a personal friend of Vettori’s, so his opinion may be a little biased, but ‘The Count’ firmly believes that Vettori is ‘the next best guy’ at middleweight and one of the best UFC fighters to have never won a world championship.

“He’s the next best guy at 185 in my opinion, he’s doing tremendous things,” Bisping said of Vettori in a recent YouTube video (h/t Sportskeeda). “I’m a friend of Marvin’s, I think he’s tremendous. That fight he had against Paulo Costa was sensational. I called that fight, I was right there, he won that fight fair and square but Paulo Costa had a lot of success and some of the shots that Marvin ate, some of those kicks and punches and the power that Costa has, Marvin took every single f***ing one of them.”

“(Vettori) never took a backwards step and fired right back every single time,” he added. “It was a really inspiring performance. I was already a fan but after that I was like wow, this guy is incredible, man.”

Vettori is currently #2 in the UFC middleweight rankings and recently took to social media to call out YouTube boxer Jake Paul.

Vettori’s rival, Adesanya, will defend his middleweight title against Robert Whittaker at UFC 271 on Feb. 12, 2022 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. ‘The Last Stylebender’ previously beat ‘The Reaper’ via first-round KO at UFC 243 to win the belt.