Quitters Never Win

by Michael Bisping

  Marshall held his hands up in surrender and joined in the entire studio having a friendly laugh at his expense.

  There were some fringe benefits to my unofficial role as a UFC UK spokesman. There was a lot of filet mignon at fancy restaurants (good food = media attendance, remember?) and I got to travel a bit while not having to worry about fighting.

  Whenever UFC puts on an event, several ‘guest fighters’ are brought in to do the additional media appearances and fan meet-and-greets that athletes days and hours away from a fight can’t be expected to do.

  I attended UFC 72 in Belfast in June 2007 as a guest fighter and used the trip to visit family. My cousin Tony picked me up from the hotel and drove me the 45 miles westward to Killylea, the tiny village where my mum’s side of the family are from. The small pub we dropped into was ram-packed.

  ‘This place must make a killing,’ I said. ‘You can barely move in here – and it’s a Wednesday.’

  Tony smiled. ‘Michael – you are related to almost every single person in this bar.’

  I had a great time having a drink with aunts, uncles and cousins I only knew from my mum’s stories. I never billed myself as ‘Irish Mick Bisping’ or anything, but I’m as proud of where my mother comes from as I am my heritage from my father’s side of the family.

  The next day I was eating breakfast at the UFC 72 hotel when Dana bounced into the restaurant looking for me. He seemed like he’d been awake the whole flight over the Atlantic and was buzzing with the ideas he’d come up with.

  ‘We’re going to London in September,’ Dana said. ‘There will be a huge main event – biggest one on free TV in the US we’ve ever done. And we want you on the card in a big fight – in the co-main event.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘Who’s the opponent?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  MAIN EVENT

  The ‘big event in London’ was, of course, UFC 75, which was announced and scheduled for 7 September 2007, in the gigantic O2 Arena on the banks of the Thames. The biggest indoor arena in the UK, the O2 is situated inside the spaceship-like white structure that used to be known as the Millennium Dome.

  The huge main event Dana alluded to was Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson unifying the UFC light heavyweight title he’d recently ripped away from Chuck Liddell against newly signed PRIDE FC champion Dan Henderson. UFC 75 was promoted as ‘Champion vs Champion’ and, just like UFC 70, the event would be broadcast on American cable-television station Spike, which would guarantee millions of viewers in the US alone.

  When Joe Silva placed the official call to my management regarding my co-main event slot, my opponent was revealed as Matt Hamill.

  The fight made sense from the UFC’s perspective. Bisping vs Hamill had seemed destined to happen during TUF 3 and there was plenty of footage of the pair of us together for video-hype packages etc. ‘The ultimate grudge’, as it was billed, was an easy story line for the fans to buy into.

  The PR push when tickets go on sale for a big event (for UFC, typically three months or so before the fight night itself) is unimaginatively called the ‘on-sale’. Rampage Jackson was flown into London to join me in doing the on-sale.

  Although the same age as me, Rampage had been fighting half a decade longer. He’d fought his way around America’s MMA circuit until making the leap to Japan’s PRIDE FC in 2001 and becoming one of the biggest stars in the sport. He’d jumped back over the Pacific again to join the UFC in February 2007 and had repeated an earlier KO win over Chuck Liddell to win the UFC light heavyweight title.

  Rampage was awesome, I decided very quickly. The African-American brawler from Memphis was hilarious. Self-deprecatingly hilarious, too, which was a rare thing for one of the most menacing fighters in the world. He was a proud dad. We had that in common, too. Rampage also had a big heart – while we were walking to the restaurant he slipped away and bought takeaways for two homeless men sitting in dirty green sleeping bags in an alleyway.

  We really clicked over those few days.

  ‘Come to Big Bear and train for this fight with me,’ Rampage said over dinner. ‘You look like the kinda guy who loves him some trainin’. My manager Juanito has a great camp in the California mountains. You should come.’

  I felt obligated to clear it with my management, but they agreed a camp with the world’s number-one light heavyweight – plus a host of other UFC contenders and MMA fighters – would be too good an opportunity to pass up.

  In July, I was in California, on the winding roads towards the rarefied air of Big Bear. Generations of legendary boxing champions had based their training camps in the small town that sits 6,752ft above sea level, but I was dropped off at what was unmistakably an MMA camp.

  Rampage’s manager and trainer at the time was a Mexican-American named Juanito Ibarra. Like his adoptive home town, he’d migrated from boxing (his best-known client was Oscar de la Hoya) to MMA; he was running a fantastic camp in the wooded hills of San Bernardino County. That camp in the summer of 2007 was world class: the coaching was as good as I’d received during TUF, but the training and sparring partners were out of this world.

  In addition to the UFC light heavyweight champion, UFC heavyweight contenders Cheick Kongo and Brandon Vera were there along with welterweight Zach Light and five others who had fights coming up in the next few months.

  It was a stacked camp – everyone was a professional fighter – and Juanito ran it with the precision of a Swiss watch.

  The term ‘camp’, by the way, never felt more appropriate than when I was in Big Bear. Most of us were staying in log-fire luxury cabins dotted around the centre of town. We took our meals at Juanito’s place (where Rampage was staying), which was located across the street from the gym.

  The gym was situated in one of the few buildings I set foot in during my stay that wasn’t made entirely of wood. It was a two-storey structure and had a long matted section and a cage on the ground floor. Then, up a flight of stairs, was a naturally lit space with heavy bags creaking from wood beams. Rounding out the facilities on the same side of the road (it felt like there was only one) as Juanito’s house was a surprisingly well-equipped weights gym that Kongo became fond of.

  My first spar with Rampage Jackson, the UFC world champion of the same light heavyweight division I competed in, came on the third day of camp.

  ‘When we spar,’ Rampage said with his mouthpiece already in, ‘Yo’ kick my ass – all good. I kick yo’ ass – all good. Okay?’

  Only, Rampage wasn’t really okay with getting hit in sparring. Whenever he was cracked with a good shot in the gym, you could visibly see his temper brewing behind his mouthpiece and eyes. More than one training partner of his was made to regret their momentary successes.

  Like with my spars with Forrest Griffin six months earlier, I took a lot of confidence from how I measured up against the world’s No.1 light heavyweight.

  I also took full advantage of the chance to train at altitude for the first time (with all due respect to Castle Hill in Nottingham). Every morning the team went for a jog into the surrounding greenery of the San Bernardino National Forest. The idea was to loosen the muscles a little, get the blood pumping before the hard work began. Y’know, that sort of thing.

  On the first day of these little jaunts, maybe 400 yards into it, I noticed Zach Light darting his eyes sideways at me. Then he put on a burst of speed and pulled a yard ahead. My eyes were darting now. And I pulled level. So he increased speed, slightly, once more. And I pulled level again. We both knew what would come next – we broke into a full-on sprint.

  Every day thereafter was the same: Zach and I would have a race. We never spoke about it, but we were locked in a one-on-one three-mile race. He won the early meets, but by the end of the camp I was flying ahead of the group. This is a prime example of one of my character flaws – excessive competitiveness – manifesting itself in my fighting career.

  Another focus of my work in Big Bear was wrestling. I knew from experience that Hamill was
outstanding at takedowns and controlling opponents with his grappling. That’s what everyone expected him to do in the fight. I was lucky enough to have a naturally good sense of balance, but this camp – grappling with a powerhouse like Rampage and heavyweights in Kongo and Vera – was my master’s degree in takedown defence.

  The night of UFC 75 arrived and I was in the best shape of my career. I was markedly more experienced now. One of the biggest lessons I’d taken from my first year as a UFC fighter, so I thought, was not to allow my emotions to dictate the way I fought like I had at UFC 70.

  So, as I made my way out of the tunnel into the O2 Arena, I pushed my breath out in long exhales. Wave after wave of cheers from the 16,235 fans crashed around the former Millennium Dome but I kept my feet on the ground and refused to be swept away. I smiled and acknowledged that I appreciated the fans’ support, but I kept it at arm’s length. I declined to be pulled into the kind of shared emotional frenzy that got me into trouble in Manchester.

  I calmly took my shoes off at the prep-point next to the Octagon. I took my T-shirt off and handed it to my cornermen. I gave the cutman plenty of time to apply grease to my skin. I took the stairs one at a time. I jogged lightly in circles across the canvas. I saw my mum at ringside and give her a smile, and I had a thumbs-up for Dana.

  On the other side of the Octagon, my opponent was whipping himself into a frenzy. This was the fight he’d waited over a year for.

  Hamill charged across the Octagon like a madman. He was fired up – but instead of going for takedowns like we expected, he was throwing bombs. With the 20/20 of hindsight, I’d overcompensated for Manchester and done myself a disservice by starting the fight so calm. I was scrambling, a pilot sprinting towards his plane during a surprise air raid. Hamill kept heaving forward with power shots.

  At one point this ape of a bloke had me in the sort of headlock you’d put your younger brother in – only he was smashing me in the face with his other fist. I distinctly remember seeing blood curve around my nose and drip to the canvas and thinking, Well, this isn’t going to fucking plan, is it?

  He scored two takedowns and, while I nullified his ground and pound, I’d lost a round for the first time in my pro career.

  The second round was a war of attrition and my California crash-course in wrestling and altitude training proved their worth. I’d drilled throwing punches from my back relentlessly and, when the fight went to the ground, I out-landed Hamill from inside my guard. As the round wore on, I countered Matt’s lunging strikes on the feet with jabs and combinations more and more.

  The third and final round was my strongest. I dug deep, set the pace and landed several satisfying power punches. The fight ended with me slamming home a solid head kick and stuffing a takedown attempt.

  My first points decision of my pro MMA career was a split-decision victory. The two American judges awarded me the fight while the British judge had Hamill the winner. It was a very close fight.

  What I should have said to Joe Rogan afterwards was, ‘Wow, all respect to Matt. That was a hard fight. He surprised me in the opening round – I had to fight my heart out to get the win.’

  But that doesn’t even resemble what I broadcasted from the middle of the Octagon. I gave Matt no credit. I was obnoxious. I look back on my conduct and cringe. I deeply regret the way I behaved that night.

  After I retired, 11 years after UFC 75, I was put on the spot by a live interviewer.

  ‘Who gave you the toughest fight of your UFC career?’ he asked.

  He probably expected a big name like Anderson Silva, GSP or Dan Henderson.

  Instead, he got the honest answer that I didn’t give all those years before.

  ‘Matt Hamill,’ I said. ‘Matt Hamill gave me the toughest fight of my career.’

  Over five million Americans had watched the fight on US television – and they wanted the rematch. A month after UFC 75, the UFC called and asked me if I could be ready to face Hamill again at the UFC 78 pay-per-view event scheduled for New Jersey. I had six weeks to train, but readily accepted the chance to underline my win, but Matt had suffered an injury and couldn’t be ready until the New Year.

  Just as I thought my 2007 campaign was over, the UFC came back and said they still wanted me for UFC 78 – and in an even bigger fight.

  Rashad Evans was 10–0–1 and had begun his UFC run by winning the heavyweight Ultimate Fighter tournament during season two of the reality show. He immediately dropped down to light heavyweight and began marching towards a title shot. The draw on his record had come in a fight many felt he’d won versus Tito Ortiz.

  ‘This is going to be the first time two Ultimate Fighter winners have fought each other,’ Joe Silva said, before adding the bombshell: ‘This is going to be the main event of UFC 78.’

  Less than two years since I’d travelled to London to audition for The Ultimate Fighter and only four years since giving up working in the upholstery factory, I would be headlining a pay-per-view event in the USA.

  ‘They’re throwing you to the wolves, Mike,’ warned Tony Quigley. ‘The UFC are setting you up to lose this one.’

  Tony was from the world of boxing with its backroom schemes of protecting fighters by matching them with has-beens and never-weres until they’d built 32–0 (with 31 knockouts) records and were on the cusp of a shot at the half-dozen or so ‘world’ titles.

  That wasn’t how it worked in the UFC. In the UFC, there’s only one champion per division, for a start. And I wasn’t getting thrown anywhere, I’d fought my way from the reality series to the opening fight of the UFC 66 pay-per-view, to the middle of the main card for UFC 70 and co-main spot at UFC 75. The next step up was headlining, and you don’t headline major UFC events without fighting elite contenders.

  Tony thought he was looking out for my best interests, but I could have done without him expressing those sorts of sentiments. I’d never turned down a fight in my life, and I sure as hell wasn’t turning down the chance to main-event a major show in America.

  ‘Tony,’ I said, ‘I’m not in the UFC so I can cut the line at Las Vegas nightclubs to impress my mates. I’m there to go all the way. I’m going to win the world title – and you don’t hand-pick opponents all the way to the belt in the UFC.’

  Rampage – who’d defended his title in London – wasn’t scheduled to fight again until the following summer and with less than two months to get ready for Rashad, I trained in Liverpool.

  The quality of that preparation vis-à-vis what I’d experienced in Big Bear was stark. My main (and on a lot of days, only) sparring partner for Rashad – an explosive athlete and wrestling virtuoso – was Gary Kelly, a Liverpool lightweight training for his pro debut.

  Gary was a scrapper; he could give me a workout but he wasn’t any sort of wrestler at all. And he was a lightweight – Rashad had stamped his ticket to the UFC by winning The Ultimate Fighter heavyweight tournament. Fortunately, I’d trained wrestling like crazy for the Hamill fight. That, I hoped, would be enough against Suga Rashad.

  Rashad and I had spent several days together in London earlier in 2007, signing autographs at a martial arts and sports convention in London along with Josh Koscheck and Anderson Silva. We were both light heavyweights at similar stages of our careers. We didn’t need to mention it, but the thought we’d be fighting each other soon occurred to both of us.

  Nevertheless, we got on great during those three days. And, today, Rashad is one of my absolute favourite people to share a commentary desk with. Love that guy now …

  … but not so much in mid-November 2007.

  The abbreviated build-up to our fight was punctuated with the pair of us sniping at the other in interviews. By the time I was in New Jersey, we’d worked ourselves into a definite dislike of each other. We exchanged glares during the press conference and whenever we saw each other at the hotel.

  One of the times I spotted him was the morning of the weigh-ins. He was glistening in a rubber suit, the arms and legs taped shut, and on
his way to a sauna to spurt out the last few pounds before he stepped on the scale.

  I paused for a second. My opponent, a couple of inches shorter than me, was dressed as a cosmonaut and on his way to boil in a Turkish suite. Meanwhile – at the absolute insistence of the Liverpool gym folk – I was about to leave the hotel in search of a Chinese-meal lunch.

  Three and a half hours after I chose the ‘healthiest’ dish at the Peking Pavilion, I stepped on the scale, set up on the New Jersey Devils’ practice ice-rink at the Prudential Center arena.

  Frigid surroundings or not, Rashad’s temper was red hot. He refused to shake my hand after we both weighed within the 205lb limit and then we had to be separated backstage.

  When I walked out to the Octagon on fight night, Mike Goldberg read out that I’d said Rashad’s style was so negative that I’d seen more aggression from Rebecca when she hit the January sales.

  Joe Rogan cracked up laughing, adding, ‘He’s a funny guy – he says lots of funny things like that.’

  The US fans weren’t so sure. At UFC 66 less than 11 months before, I’d been cheered against an American on American soil. But the fallout from UFC 75 had cast me as a pantomime heel, and the Americans booed the British baddie.

  Unquestionably, Rashad was another distinct step up in competition. He was effortlessly athletic and his movements a series of controlled detonations. My previous two opponents were big and strong, but Rashad was different. He was explosively powerful. Instead of boaring in, he disguised his takedown attempts with strikes and feints (which are the key to MMA wrestling).

  Rashad had advantages in wrestling. I had advantages in striking. He’d take me down; I’d get up. I’d rake him with a short uppercut or cross; he’d answer by pressing me against the cage. At one point he scooped me up and slammed me down; I gave him a receipt later in the form of a two-punch combo to the face.