Imagine you work your whole life for a dream. To reach it, you have to compete against people taking shortcuts. Imagine those shortcuts lead them ahead of you. Imagine that dream falls away, likely never to return. Imagine a twist of fate suddenly goes your way, and that dream is again in play.
Then imagine no one believes you can actually reach it.
In a strange way, this is what you’ve conditioned them to believe. Even if you’ve gone further and accomplished more than 99 percent of your competition, you’ve still always fallen short of the ultimate goal.
This is Michael Bisping’s UFC life today.
At 37, he’s finally received the middleweight title shot that has long eluded him. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it comes with just two weeks’ notice and against an opponent who is younger and bigger and has already soundly defeated him. Last time they met, Luke Rockhold kicked Bisping in the head, knocked him down and choked him out with one arm.
It was both brutal and decisive. And yet here we are again, 16 months later, accepting this UFC 199 matchup as some kind of career achievement award for Bisping even though the reality is...well, it appears rather bleak.
This time around, according to some sportsbooks on Odds Shark, Rockhold is as much as a minus-1100 favorite. If you’re not the gambling type, rest assured that number isn't common in UFC championship matches with a challenger ranked in the Top Five.
By comparison, when longtime middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva held the belt, only one time did he enter a fight with comparable odds—when he fought Demian Maia and danced and taunted his way to an uninspired yet lopsided victory.
“I have no pressure. I know I’m expected to lose this fight,” Bisping said during Thursday’s UFC 199 conference call. “The world is expecting me to lose this fight, and that’s so nice, that feels good. I haven’t had 10 weeks of evaluating footage and going through the emotional roller coaster. Feeling confident, feeling negative, feeling confident again, then negative again. I don’t have time for that s--t. I’m very, very confident. I’m in great shape. My weight is perfect.
"I’m expected to lose? That’s awesome."
Ten years in the hurt business is something close to an eternity. Prospects come and go. Promotions arrive with fanfare before disappearing without a trace. Entire landscapes shift beneath your feet.
Ten years in the major leagues is something else entirely. Bisping has seen the sport literally evolve before his eyes.
When he started his UFC career, Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champion. Rich Franklin was the middleweight champion, and the UFC lightweight division did not exist.
From limited sanctioning to wrestling dominance to testosterone replacement therapy and beyond, Bisping has found ways to adapt to the prevailing winds of the moment, staying relevant for a full decade. He’s been controversial—even hated for his ability to talk his way under the skin of both fighters and fans alike—and has hung around so long that he’s won many of those same critics over through respect for his longevity and drive.
And that is why for Bisping it should not matter, even though, of course, it does.
Here’s the thing about Bisping: Even if he wins, you couldn’t possibly define his career with one line.
His career has been too rich in moments, too textured.
It’s been long forgotten that when he debuted in the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter 3 in 2006, Bisping was something of a wild card. He was an undefeated fighter but one without the wrestling pedigree that seemed critical during the heyday of ground-and-pound. During the show’s draft, he was chosen fifth out of the 16 contestants, with coaches Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock viewing Matt Hamill, Jesse Forbes, Kalib Starnes and Rory Singer as more promising prospects.
Big mistake.
Bisping not only stormed through the competition with three straight stoppage wins, but he also became a dominant personality to match the colorful coaches.
His success was crucial for the breakthrough of the company in Europe, as he became one of the front men for the sport’s growth, opening up opportunities for both fighters and the local markets. Indeed, when the UFC brought an event to Bisping’s then-home city of Manchester, England in April 2007, it was largely because of his exploding star power there. The company hadn’t taken the Octagon outside the U.S. in nearly five years.
It was a formula the UFC would later replicate to great success with Alexander Gustafsson and Conor McGregor in tapping an exploding European market.
Bisping? He was the blueprint.
The rematch with Rockhold will be the 26th fight of Bisping’s UFC career, tying him with Gleison Tibau and putting him just one behind the co-record holders, Frank Mir and Ortiz.
It will also mark the 18th time he’s featured in either the main event or co-main event, and in every fight of his UFC career, he’s been on the main card, something only a handful with such longevity can boast.
If this timing wasn’t ideal—coming on short notice and shortly after Bisping wrapped a movie—it was better than the alternative of never. Bisping only received the opportunity after first alternate Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza pronounced himself unable to compete due to a knee injury.
“Mike, he’s a tough dude,” Rockhold said on the conference call. “He’s got balls. He took this fight, but this will not be his fairy tale. This will be his swan song.”
Maybe.
It’s almost certainly the Brit's last chance for a UFC title, but if he falls short, it does nothing to blunt his importance during the promotion’s key years of growth.
So, he loses. Imagine that.
Imagine you’ve worked your whole life for a moment that didn’t live up to its promise. Then imagine everything that’s come before it.
He doesn’t have to. He did it. But if he wants to, Bisping can close his eyes and think back on it all, content in the knowledge that all he did was as important to his legacy as any precious metal.
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