Quitters Never Win

by Michael Bisping

  Maybe I could have been pissed off about the pay, particularly because over 40 of my family and friends all bought tickets, so it wasn’t like I didn’t earn my place on the card in terms of putting arses on seats. But, spending months orienting my life around fighting without actually fighting was driving me nuts. I’ve never been afraid of a fight in my life and I didn’t see any reason not to supercharge my training with actual fights.

  The event, Pride and Glory 2: Battle of the Ages, took place in a leisure centre in Eldon Square. A boxing ring set up in a gym hall with netball court lines painted on the floor was a long way from Las Vegas’s MGM Grand, but it was a start.

  Every fighter on the card – including my opponent and everyone else’s opponent – got changed in the same poky storage backroom. There were 24 of us rubbing against each other’s shoulders and nerves.

  My anxiety was throbbing out of my eyeballs. It wasn’t fear. Fear I knew what to do with. I was literally shaking under the pressure to win this thing. If I couldn’t beat someone named Steve Mathews, on a card held in a Tyneside netball court, in a fight so insignificant the promoter saw no need to pay for it … well, this whole thing was over, wasn’t it?

  There wasn’t any reason to worry. I took Mathews – who apparently had some sort of hard-man rep – apart in a blaze of strikes. (Somehow, the fight was recorded as a submission win via armbar, and for the rest of my career I was credited with one extra sub and one less TKO.)

  ‘The ball’s rolling now, Paul,’ I said afterwards.

  Even as I hit the bar with Rebecca and my friends, I kept turning back to the action in the ring. The nervous energy I’d felt was something else. It was a hundred times more pressure than in my competitions as a kid but I knew I could control it better in my second fight and, in time, learn to use it as a positive force. I couldn’t wait to get back in there.

  My second pro-fight came just 50 days later. It was on a Sunday afternoon card at the Circus Tavern, the venue of choice for Essex wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs. The event was billed as UK MMA 7: Rage and Fury! which sounded like a charming evening’s entertainment. My opponent, John Weir, was 3–1 with three KOs.

  The way the 600 or so fans pressed up against the boxing ring was a fire hazard, but it made for a great atmosphere. The fight was raw. Weir had skills – he landed several knees before I overwhelmed him with strikes against the ropes and he planted face-first into the canvas.

  After two fights, I’d earned some status in the slowly expanding pocket universe of British cage fighting.

  By now I’d realised the UK MMA scene was the plaything of a few unsavoury characters. A lot of the promotions back then were run by gangsters or bench-pressing mobster wannabes. They’d all seen UFC 38 sell out the Royal Albert Hall and concluded pound notes were to be made in ‘cage fighting’. And with the UFC having to postpone plans for regular UK events to focus fully on its home US market, UFC 38 had created a market the UFC currently couldn’t service.

  British MMA, circa 2004, was a subculture: 99.9 per cent of people had no clue it even existed, but the 0.1 per cent who did lived it. The vibe around the sport, in the gyms, in training, around the fight hotels and arenas, was edgy and cool. Years before social media was big, fans and fighters communicated directly with each other using insider terms on message boards, one of which is, to this day, called ‘the Underground’. It wasn’t unlike my DJing – it was more than an interest, it was a lifestyle and a tribe with its own language.

  Of the dozen or so promotions who rushed to capitalise on that early interest, two in particular emerged as the big fish in the small pond. In the North of England there was Cage Warriors, and in the London area there was Cage Rage.

  By 2004, Cage Rage was steaming ahead, scoring a TV deal with Sky Sports and attracting regular crowds of nearly 3,000 to shows known for flashing lights, gallons of dry ice, bad tattoos and creosoted bikini girls.

  They had quality fights as well. Yeah, Cage Rage had its fair share of radioactive steroid doormen, but its main eventers were usually world-class talent including Freeman and other UFC veterans like Mark Weir, Matt Lindland and ‘Babalu’ Sobral.

  It was Sobral that Cage Rage owners Andy Geer and Dave O’Donnell called Davies to talk about in June 2004. The Brazilian submission expert’s opponent for their 10 July London event had pulled out, and they needed a replacement.

  ‘Dat Bisping kid you got – duz ’ee fancy it?’ O’Donnell wanted to know. The pay was a thousand quid. The fight was also for the newly created Cage Rage light heavyweight title and – a huge selling point – the main card of Cage Rage 7 would be broadcast several times on Sky Sports.

  Davies pitched it to me. ‘Sobral is a big name, but I have confidence in you.’

  I had confidence in me, too, and I took the fight. Of course, fighters are supposed to be brave and be willing to take on anyone, anywhere, anytime. It’s the manager’s job to be more circumspect.

  Sobral was more than a big name. Babalu had beaten 25 of the 31 opponents he’d faced in his eight years as an MMA fighter, including a former UFC champion (Maurice Smith), a UFC title challenger (Jeremy Horn) and a future PRIDE and UFC champion (Shogun Rua). The only men to have beaten him were Chael Sonnen, Chuck Liddell, Kevin Randleman, Fedor Emelianenko, Valentijn Overeem and Dan Henderson. The Brazilian was as legit as it gets on the ground and had massive experience against the best fighters in the entire sport.

  To match against that, I had six months of training in Nottingham and 100 seconds of MMA fight experience. It was probably for the best that Sobral himself pulled out just ten days before the event, and was replaced by Mark Epstein.

  ‘The Beast’ was the Cage Rage heavyweight champion and, maybe as a favour to his friends and training partners O’Donnell and Geer, he decided to drop down to the 205lb light heavy division.

  ‘This is still a step up,’ Davies told me when we met up after the weigh-in at the budget north London hotel. ‘Epstein has had nine fights, some against good American competition. He’s pals with the promoters – so don’t expect the judges to necessarily do you any favours.’

  I have great memories of Cage Rage 7. It was held at Wembley Conference Centre. The place is gone now, knocked down years ago, but to me on that night that 2,500-seat venue with its 1970s lighting was the Wembley. The place where real sports take place.

  Somehow reporters from US-based websites like Sherdog and MMAWeekly got my mobile number and I did my first interviews with American media. On weigh-in day I did my first to-camera interview, which was both exciting and painfully awkward. Without warning, I’d been ushered in front of a big Cage Rage logo, had a camera shoved in my face and was asked: ‘What’s your message to Mark Epstein?’ The very best line I could think of was, ‘Good luck. You are going to need it.’

  Dave O’Donnell was something to behold in his element. With his bald head squeezing out the top of a red shirt and black suit, and perpetually yelling and laughing in the thickest of cockney accents, Dave was the face and voice of Cage Rage. He absolutely loved MMA – he does to this day. On the afternoon of Cage Rage 7 he was bolting around everywhere – front of house, backstage with fighters, taping interviews to be rolled in during the TV broadcast – he was on fire and loving every second of it. I immediately liked the guy.

  For a lot of British MMA fighters, Cage Rage was the big show. They were almost physically aroused to be part of the UK’s UFC cover band for four Saturday nights a year. It was extra money, a reason to train and – best of all for these guys – great for the hardman rep when working the doors of London nightclubs. But I wasn’t like them, I was here to earn some money, get better and use the experience to go on to the world stage. Wembley or not, Cage Rage was not my World Cup Final.

  It was time for my fight. The noise the fans were making was amazing. I’d be lying if I told you my heart wasn’t pumping hard as I walked across the catwalk-like runway from the backstage area to the cage apron. I stepped into a cage for the
first time ever. A few moments later, the cage emptied and I heard a bolt scrape shut. The door had been locked. It was just me, the referee and Epstein surrounded by a wire mesh and a wall of noise.

  Oh, shit, I surprised myself thinking. I was literally locked in a cage with a man I was going to fight.

  I felt adrenaline sharpening my senses. This one was a little different. I’d never even trained inside a cage, but in the few times we’d spoken about it, Paul and I agreed the best plan would be to stay in the middle and avoid getting pushed against the fence.

  My opponent stood waiting for me in the centre of the cage. We were both wearing bright-red shorts. Even though he was Cage Rage’s heavyweight champion, Epstein was squatter than me at 5ft 9in – but dense with muscle.

  One report I read the week of the fight observed Epstein ‘had the face of a murderer’. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but he certainly fit the bill of a ‘cage fighter’.

  Even so, there was no hesitation when it came to attacking him at the first bell. I hacked at him with straight punches and stunned him with a right. I gave chase across the cage – but ran into a solid counter. Epstein surged forward with leg kicks and power punches. He pressed me against the fence. For the first time in my life, I felt the skin on my shoulder pinch as the mesh stretched and contorted under our weight. I fought my way off the fence but then foolishly threw a front kick, which Epstein caught. With me stood on one leg, he took me down to the ground.

  ‘The Beast’ loved to ground and pound, I knew. I was a little worried he’d taken the fight precisely where he wanted it. The rest of the round was spent with Epstein on top of me but, as ref Grant Waterman stood us up when the bell sounded, I realised I’d controlled the whole round. I’d stifled Epstein’s aggression with an active and constantly moving guard, threatened him with submissions, and landed punches from the bottom. He’d not been able to hurt me even from his favourite position. I couldn’t wait for round two and, as soon as it began, the bombardment started.

  I blasted him with lefts, rights, hooks and knees. Mark was a tough guy and somehow had packed an Incredible Hulk’s worth of muscle around his shoulders and neck. He absorbed a ton of punishment before the ref waved it off 87 seconds into the second round. The Cage Rage belt – my first in MMA – was handed over.

  There was only one more fight after mine (Mark Weir lost to a quiet, respectful American fella named Jorge Rivera) so by the time I’d dried myself off from a quick shower Dave O’Donnell had put his commentator’s microphone down and was once again bouncing around backstage doing a million things at once.

  But he wasn’t too busy to notice that I’d brought over 60 ticket-buying family and friends with me.

  ‘Fackin’ ’ell, yew are a popular laad, aintchya?’ he boomed. ‘’Ere – ’ave a pint on me, mate.’

  He handed me 600 quid in cash, on top of the grand I’d got for fighting. Then he slapped me on the shoulder and on Dave went, his bald head swivelling left and right, clearly having the time of his life.

  A little while later I limped across the car park next to the Conference Centre. It was about midnight and the car park was almost empty. In the distance seven huge cranes loomed over a construction site which would, in a few years, be the new Wembley Stadium. I climbed aboard the packed 72-seater coach that had been waiting for me and it erupted in cheers. Then came the song:

  There’s only onnnne Mikey Bis-Ping!

  Onnnnnnne Mikey Bis-Ping!

  Walkin’ along,

  Singin’ a song,

  Walkin’ in a Bisping Wonderland!

  I cracked up as my family and friends sang a song of victory for me. They were standing and cheering and all looked so proud and happy. They’d had a great time at the fight.

  ‘COME ON!’ I shouted, yanking the title belt out of my bag to more cheers.

  With a seven-hour drive north in front of him, the driver pulled off as I went up and down the coach hugging my dad, siblings and friends. Keeping my balance wasn’t easy and I sat down next to Rebecca. I cracked open a lager as we settled in for a noisy ride home.

  This was one of the best moments of my career. It’s still so vivid I could describe the way the fabric of the seat made the middle of my back itch a little, and the grunting noise the coach made as it went from first to second gear. It’s so vivid, but that night also seems an eternity ago.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BEST IN BRITAIN

  Twenty-eight days after winning the Cage Rage belt, I had my fourth fight. It was another Freeman-promoted Pride and Glory show in Newcastle and I knocked out Andy Bridges in 45 seconds.

  The Machine began training with Davies’s small group, driving down from Tyneside twice a week to spar. By this time my main accommodation was an array of Nottingham’s cheapest B&B’s, friends’ couches or, more often than not, my car.

  With a full-time job, a family and several paying strength-and-conditioning clients, Davies’s ability to commit to me would ebb and flow. More than once, instead of meeting me at the gym, he would only have time to email me a weight-training session. I understood that Paul had a million other things to do – I really did – but this wasn’t a side-project to me. This was my career; it was time away from my family. Rebecca and me were banking everything on this.

  Determined to continue to improve as quickly as possible, I began networking like crazy, zigzagging the north of the country on a quest to become a better fighter. There was a Gracie Barra BJJ school in Bolton, so I went there to absorb submission defences. I trained in kickboxing at the well-respected Black Knights gym. There was a good group of MMA guys in the Birmingham area, I heard, so I drove down there one day only to arrive as the class ended. A guy called Marc Goddard, who’d go on to be a leading referee, took pity on me and invited me in for a roll. I sparred with pro-boxers, Thai fighters and kickboxers – anyone who had professional combat sport experience. All the while I trained and entered any jiu-jitsu tournament I could get to.

  I laugh at young fighters today when I hear them saying things like, ‘In my next camp, I want to work on such-and-such a thing.’ What’s wrong with them? They’re young – they should be training every single day! They’ve no idea how lucky they are to have a striking coach, a BJJ coach, a wrestling coach, strength-and-conditioning experts and top-drawer sparring all under the same roof. If I’d had access to the training available today, I’d have been UFC-ready inside of one year, believe you me.

  My cardio levels got a massive boost when an old-school strength and fitness expert called Jeff Rainbow took me under his wing. I can still remember groaning at the sound of his instructions at the bottom of Nottingham’s Castle Hill: ‘At the top of that hill there’s a tree with a branch about nine foot above the ground – sprint up the hill to the tree, jump and touch the branch ten times with your right hand. Then ten times with your left hand. Then do ten push-ups and get back here. You’ve got five minutes. Go!’

  Jeff was awesome. He helped forge one of the most effective weapons I used in my entire career – my cardio. He showed me how to weaponise it – to push through pain and keep working through exhaustion and take the fight where other athletes couldn’t follow without falling apart. I kept on pushing my entire career and I credit my cardio with many of my biggest career wins.

  With all the quality training I was getting, I underwent a physical transformation. I was beginning to look, feel and perform like the athlete I always should have been.

  And I needed to. Epstein’s supporters had bombarded the UK MMA forums like CageWarriors.com and SFUK with posts saying my Cage Rage title win was a fluke. That Mark took the call on short notice and, if he’d had a full camp, he’d have thumped me. Our Cage Rage 7 fight was already considered to be one of the best in the short history of the British scene – and Dave O’Donnell had already seen I could do a bit of box office. The rematch was a no-brainer.

  The return bout was set for Cage Rage 9, on 27 November 2004, back at Wembley. By the time it rolled aroun
d, I felt several levels above the fighter who’d faced Epstein in July. My body was trip-wire tight and my skillset was bigger and sharper. I’d been training full-time for 11 months, and felt I had an edge in talent, aggression and athleticism over any fighter in the UK. I was the best of the Brits, I wasn’t shy of saying it.

  The Wembley Conference Centre sold out on the night and Sky Sport’s cameras were once again trained on the cage. It was still a niche sport, but the UK MMA scene was growing rapidly. You could feel it.

  Just like in the first fight, I attacked Epstein from the opening bell. This time I found my range quicker and sensed Epstein’s counters sooner. I dropped him for a split-second with a sustained attack and, later in the round, chopped him down with a jab + cross + left hook combo. The second knockdown hurt him. I pounced on top of him and rained shots from full mount for several minutes. Referee Waterman must have thought about stopping it.

  In the second, I continued to exploit my height and reach advantages: cracking home lefts and rights in combinations while Epstein could only swing and miss. The only shot Epstein landed with any regularity was a leg kick. I hit him at will. By the end of the second round, Epstein had the face of a murder victim rather than a murderer.

  He hurt me in the third, though, and I had to overcome the first difficult moments of my career. I’d not learned how to check a leg kick yet (the art of intercepting the oncoming strike on the shin, rather than allowing the impact to tenderise your leg muscles) and, unable to land much else, the Beast had continued to go for my lead left leg all night. Towards the end of the third and final round, Epstein slammed his shin into the flesh just above my left knee.

  My entire leg locked stiff with pain. The London Massive went nuts as Epstein went after my leg again and again. Nothing hurts quite as vindictively as a solid kick to the leg – they are horrible – and with me not knowing how to defend against them, I took a few more than I would have liked. But, gradually, feeling returned to the limb and I re-engaged. Epstein’s brief rally was over. I found the target for a big right hand to end it at 4:41 of the last round.