British contender Michael Bisping (28-7) has never fought for the UFC Middleweight Championship before, previously losing a pair of title-eliminator bouts to Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen.
Bisping will finally get his opportunity Saturday at UFC 199 in Los Angeles, where he meets champion Luke Rockhold (15-2) as a late injury replacement for former champ Chris Weidman. Bisping is now a monster plus-525 underdog (bet $100 to win $525) at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark.
Rockhold is listed as much as a minus-900 betting favorite (bet $900 to win $100) after upsetting Weidman for the belt via fourth-round TKO at UFC 194 last December in Las Vegas.
The former Strikeforce middleweight champ has won five straight bouts and 14 of his last 15. The lone loss during that stretch came on a spinning heel kick by Vitor Belfort, which resulted in a first-round knockout a little more than three years ago.
Bisping’s last loss came against Rockhold by second-round guillotine choke in November 2014. Since then, The Count has won three in a row, including a key unanimous-decision victory over former UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva in London on February 27. Their bout won Fight of the Night honors.
In the co-main event, bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz (21-1) will face nemesis Urijah Faber (33-8) in a rubber match for the title. Cruz is a heavy minus-525 favorite against Faber. The California Kid is a plus-410 underdog.
They have split two previous meetings. Faber took the first by guillotine choke at featherweight more than nine years ago in the WEC. Then Cruz won the rematch for the UFC Bantamweight Championship with a unanimous-decision victory at UFC 132 in July 2011.
Cruz and Faber were originally supposed to square off after they served as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter: Live in 2012. However, Cruz suffered a torn ACL and was unable to fight at the time. He then tore both of his ACLs along with his groin, before earning a split-decision win over former champ T.J. Dillashaw on January 17 to regain the belt.
Faber has won seven of his last nine, losing to Frankie Edgar at featherweight in May 2015 and Renan Barao for the bantamweight title at UFC 169 a year earlier.
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