As the fight went on, I began to read Rashad’s takedown set-up and redistribute my weight to stifle his wrestling. Then, near the end of the second, I drew Rashad’s attention with a knee to the guts and dived down for a takedown of my own. I lifted my opponent up and dumped him on the canvas as the horn to end the round sounded. It felt really good to give him a dose of his own medicine.
The first round was Rashad’s. I had taken the second. Everything would come down to the final five minutes.
My opponent came swaggering out of his corner for the last. I went out to meet him, composed and confident. We fired single bullets at each other for a minute, then Rashad pressed for a takedown that, eventually, he won. Twenty seconds later we scrambled, and I took him down. The fight returned to standing and I landed a solid left hook. Then Rashad did. Half the round had gone and we were deadlocked.
‘Who wins this fight may be determined in the next two and a half minutes,’ Goldberg said.
My future friend chased a right cross across the canvas and took me down. We got up and he landed a one-two. He went for another takedown. I sprawled and landed a punch to his jaw. I put another knee in his ribs. Neither of us could hold on to the initiative for long.
I’ll win this in the last ten seconds, I thought. When I hear the ‘clapper’ announce we’re in the last ten seconds of the fight, I’ll throw everything at him – give the fans what they want, draw a cheer and impress the judges.
Clap-clap-clap! There it was—
Rashad took me down again.
Fuck, no!
That last, final takedown was enough to win Rashad the decision 29–28, 29–28, with one judge disagreeing and giving it to me 28–29. Even when I watched the fight back on tape, my honest impression is that Rashad nicked it in the final moments and deserved to win.
‘Will you shake my hand now?’ I said to Rashad in the middle of the Octagon.
He smiled and took my hand. We hugged and congratulated each other. The respect we earned from each other that night would, in time, develop into a real friendship.
On the way to the post-fight press conference, Joe Silva shared an encouraging word: ‘Your wrestling was phenomenal.’
Prompted by Gareth Davies and Kevin Francis from the UK newspapers, who were angling for a quote for ‘Brit Bisp Will Be Back!’ type stories, Dana said: ‘I don’t think Michael lost anything tonight. He proved he is for real.’
Under some circumstances, those could have been nice, smoothing sentiments. They weren’t that night. Not at all. As the reality of my first professional loss sank in, I began to take an honest inventory of what I could have done differently.
First, I’d given Rashad far, far too much respect in the fight. While everything I said above about Rashad’s ability is 100 per cent accurate, I flew the length of the Atlantic back home knowing that I could have done more in the Octagon. I would never wait until the final seconds of a fight to push the pace again. From then on, if I had energy to attack – I attacked.
And second, there was no more hiding from the fact that I could do more – much more – outside the Octagon, too.
‘I need to make changes,’ I told Rebecca first, and then the Liverpool gym. ‘I’m not making the sacrifices I could make to get the best out of my ability and the opportunities I’m earning.’
Okay, they said. But – was I sure I wanted to drop from light heavyweight to the middleweight division?
‘That’s a 20lb drop,’ they said.
Yes, I was sure. I’d avoided thinking too much about it because I’d been winning all my fights, but the evidence had been there all along. True light heavyweights were the size of Forrest Griffin and Rampage. They had to cut weight to make 205lb – they were 205lb for a handful of minutes a year. I was 205lb all year. They wore rubber suits to saunas and rubbed thermogenic liniments on their skin to make them lose water-weight faster. They didn’t wolf down Whoppers the day before weigh-ins or go for a Chinese for lunch hours before stepping on the scale.
The call went out to Joe Silva.
My first fight of 2008 would be in the UFC’s middleweight division.
CHAPTER TEN
ONE EIGHT FIVE
Ever since I first landed in America to do the medicals and final interview for TUF 3, I’d gotten puzzled comments from MMA people regarding my choice of weight division. In MMA, the light heavyweight championship limit is 205lb (14st 9lb) and to fight in the middleweight division you cannot weigh more than 185lb (13st 3lb). And everybody thought I should have been competing as a middleweight.
Now the ‘O’ in my record was gone forever and I forced myself to face the reality that I hadn’t been making the sacrifices I could have made. I owed it to myself, my family and supporters to work for every last possible advantage in the Octagon and I’d not been doing that. I never fought as a light heavyweight again.
One of the many advantages of America’s obsession with high school and college wrestling is every year thousands more young athletes are indoctrinated into the dark arts of the weight cut. ‘Cutting weight’ is a process where an athlete rapidly loses enough fluid and salts to temporarily lower their mass for an official weight check, only to equally rapidly replace that fluid and return to their previous poundage and strength. The result is an athlete who was a 185lb middleweight on Friday’s official weigh-check weighing 200lb or more come fight time.
Cutting weight can be a horrible and sometimes dangerous process, I knew. Athletes in several sports, including MMA, have become seriously ill and have even died when cutting too much weight or not going about it properly. No one on my team had the experience to help me yoyo down to 185lb for the weigh-in and safety back to around 200lb for the fight 24 hours later.
So I elected to diet and exercise my way down to 185lb.
Twenty pounds is a lot of person, though, believe you me. It is twice as much weight as the average person’s head – skull, brain, the lot – for example. Put another way, if you took nine and a half litres of water out of Michael Bisping the light heavyweight, you’d be looking at a Michael Bisping who would just about be small enough to compete as a middleweight.
To complete the move to 185lb, I’d need to lose a full 10 per cent of my body weight. Because I’d not weighed 185lb since I was a teenager, Joe Silva had suggested pushing my next fight to the springtime. ‘Give your body time to adjust, try out a weight cut. Get this right,’ the matchmaker said.
Silva’s concern wasn’t purely altruistic. While every fighter on the UFC roster was entitled to pick whichever division they wanted to compete in, Silva had a responsibility to the company to ensure fights were safe as well as competitive.
So, in January 2008, I set about transforming myself into a middleweight. Only, I was totally naive when it came to how to go about it. Instead of cutting the weight, like almost every other fighter on the roster, I dieted and exercised my arse off. Rather than bungee-jumping in down to 13st 3lb for a few moments, I spent months slowly lowering my mass from around 15 stone towards the middleweight limit.
First, obviously, anything remotely resembling fast food was eradicated from my diet. Then processed foods and anything containing sodium, refined sugar and carbohydrates was cut out. And I’d run, my God did I run. I’d run four miles – at a pace – in the morning on an empty stomach.
It wasn’t as hard as you might be imagining. At light heavyweight, my breakfast staple of choice was chicken sausage, eggs and mushrooms. Omelettes, boiled eggs and salads with lumps of chicken were also my go-to meals for later in the day. Without that kind of calorie intake and with the additional running, plus two training sessions and sparring or weights in the evening, the weight came off me and a call was placed to Joe Silva to arrange my first fight as a middleweight.
‘There’s a lot of guys at one-eighty-five who want to fight you,’ Silva said over the phone from his basement office in his Virginia home.
He was excited about his middleweight division, which had also just added Da
n Henderson, bonkers BJJer Rousimar Palhares, submission specialist Demian Maia and half a dozen fresh newcomers from the latest TUF season.
The way MMA sports writing works a lot of the time is that a fighter (in this case me) will make an announcement (in this case my middleweight move) and the media will then call people who may be able to offer an interesting response to that announcement (in this case middleweight fighters who wanted to fight me). So, I was already well aware of my popularity among my new peers. For example, fan-favourite brawler Chris Leben went out of his way to inform the MMA media he fancied his chances. Alan Belcher, a ginger kickboxer from Mississippi who I knew mainly as the owner of the world’s worst arm tattoo, was another vocal campaigner to welcome me to the division.
In the end, my middleweight debut was scheduled for 19 April 2008, at UFC 83 in Montreal, Canada. My first middleweight opponent was to be ‘Chainsaw’ Charles McCarthy, a submission specialist from Florida who’d made his way to the UFC roster via the fourth season of TUF. McCarthy was dangerous on the ground – all ten of his pro wins were via submission – and my game-plan obviously included keeping the fight standing.
On the morning of the weigh-in in Montreal, I bumped into Eddie Bravo in the host hotel.
‘How’s your weight-cut?’ the dark-haired BJJ icon and flat-earth aficionado asked in that distinctively raspy So-Cal accent of his.
‘I’ve actually not cut anything,’ I answered. ‘I’ve done it all by dieting. I’ve got about a pound to get rid of now, and then I’m good.’
Bravo’s eyebrows levitated as I explained that the last pound would vanish over the course of a brisk walk to get some post-weigh-in protein drinks from a GNC health store down the road. ‘I’m wearing a rubber sweat suit under this hoodie and jogging bottoms, just to make sure,’ I added.
‘Wow,’ Bravo said. ‘That’s it? If you cut weight you could make welterweight, bro. You’re walking around at eighty-six? You could cut the fifteen down to one-seventy, no problem. I know guys who fight at welterweight and they walk around at ninety-five all the way to two-ten.’
As I paid for my protein shakes at that store up the road, I couldn’t help but think I was still getting this aspect of the game wrong. I mean, I was no welterweight, I knew that for a fact. I’m 6ft 1in tall; if I went down to the 170lb division I’d be so skinny I’d be able to grate cheese with my ribs.
But … Bravo knew his shit. He’s been around wrestling, grappling and MMA for years. If American-based welterweights were cutting down from around 200lb, it obviously followed the middleweights were cutting down from 215lb or 220lb. In terms of making the most of my drop to middleweight, I was doing the equivalent of using first-aid kit bandages as handwraps.
The UFC 83 weigh-in was memorable for two reasons.
First, the atmosphere in the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal was like being inside a lightning storm. The fans there had waited for years to finally get a UFC event in Canada and that pent-up excitement saw all 21,390 tickets sold out in minutes, breaking the UFC attendance record.
Adding to the anticipation was the main event. Georges St-Pierre – who grew up and still lived in Montreal – re-matched with brash Long Island champ Matt Serra for the UFC welterweight title. The fight had every ingredient a promoter could wish for: a hometown hero challenging for the belt against a cocky champion who delighted in playing the bad guy.
Serra had stopped GSP with strikes a year before, ripping the Canadian’s belt away in what is to this day the biggest upset in UFC history. Now, as a people, Canadians are typically a laid-back, friendly bunch, but months of Serra’s insults (‘frog-eating Frenchies’, ‘red-wine drinkers’) had them foaming at the mouth to see their fighter shut the American up.
Meanwhile, the polite and professional St-Pierre was cheered and high-fived everywhere he went.
Funny, I couldn’t help but think. I’m GSP when I fight in the UK and Matt Serra when I fight in America.
The second reason this weigh-in sticks out in my memory is that I accepted a second fight before even weighing in for the one I was in town for.
Marshall was hovering around while I went through my pre-weigh-in medical checks. When I retook my seat on the Bell Centre riser, he and Joe Silva approached me.
‘We need you on the London show,’ Marshall said, referring to UFC 85, scheduled for seven weeks later. ‘We did all this PR for Chuck Liddell, but he’s out hurt. Every fight Joe lines up for the event falls apart due to injuries. It’s like the event is cursed. You know how big that O2 venue is – we could really use you to help fill it.’
UFC marketing had dubbed the UFC 85 event as Bedlam without realising just how apt the name would be. The term bedlam comes from the nickname of London’s infamous lunatic asylum and its centuries of urban legends which have literally inspired horror movies. Apparently, this ‘Bedlam’ had already driven the UFC’s matchmaker insane.
‘We could really use you on that card, Mike,’ Marshall said again. ‘Would you think about it?’
I gave them a puzzled look.
‘There’s not much to think about,’ I answered. ‘Of course I’ll fight, assuming tomorrow goes well.’
And so, there and then, I agreed to a 7 June fight against popular brawler Chris Leben.
‘You’ve got to come through tomorrow night okay,’ Silva added, like he was trying to jinx me.
By the time I stepped through the curtains to weigh in, I’d managed to push London and Leben out of my thoughts. I was 100 per cent focused on the battle at hand. The noise from the crowd would have jarred me back to the present anyway – the weigh-in attendance was the largest I’d seen yet. It was like a huge heaving mass of faces and cheers. After I hit 185.5lb on the scale (most athletic commissions give a one-pound allowance for non-title fights), McCarthy and I faced off on the stage.
‘I’m going to break your arm,’ the BJJ fighter informed me over the cheers. ‘You won’t have the chance to tap! I’ll break it!’
McCarthy had a high opinion of himself and the brown belt he’d just earned from the American Top Team gym in Florida. He didn’t hold yours truly in such high regard, though. During fight week, he referred to me as a ‘stepping stone’.
Chainsaw carried that confidence all the way into the first round, bless him. I disabused him of it right away, setting up right hands, hooks and knees to his face off of my jab. I felt razor-sharp and a lot of commentators remarked I looked physically imposing as a middleweight.
McCarthy scored a good takedown, though, halfway through the round; he snagged my arm as I was scrambling to my feet, and wrenched for the armbar with all he had. I remained calm and, after a couple of long moments, worked my limb free using a textbook armbar defence.
Back to the feet with a minute to go, I forced my opponent against the cage. McCarthy buried his chin into his chest and welded his forearms in front of his face. I laid siege to those defences, firing broadsides of uppercuts and hooks before using a Thai clinch technique I’d learned while in Ramkhamhaeng. My Thai coaches had me grabbing a heavy bag as if I had an opponent in a clinch, and then skipping knees into it for round after round after round. That’s what I did to McCarthy, I drove over 20 knee strikes into him, smashing through his defences until they landed flush on his face. He dropped like a stone and I continued to throw at him while he lay on the ground.
The round ended but my opponent couldn’t get to his feet. Sensibly, the referee waved the fight off before round two could happen. McCarthy had said he was going to break my arm – instead it was his ulna forearm bone that had been fractured by my knees.
My middleweight campaign was up and running.
‘We’ve never seen Michael Bisping look as good as he did tonight,’ Goldberg said on the broadcast of my middleweight debut.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing Bisping compete in this division again,’ Rogan added.
He wouldn’t have to wait long.
There wasn’t a whole lot of downtime between UFC 83
and UFC 85. The UFC had a lot of tickets to sell in London and while there was an increasing number of British fighters joining the UFC roster – Birmingham kickboxer Paul Taylor, Liverpool submission specialist Terry Etim and, to his delight, a slimmed-down Paul Kelly – most of the heavy lifting in terms of PR was still on my shoulders.
But, apparently, the Bedlam curse wasn’t done with the UFC 85 event quite yet. The news soon came down that Leben had an issue getting a passport at short notice and he was pulled from the event. (Basically, Chris decided moving to a Hawaiian beach house was sufficient excuse not to bother with a court-mandated anti-drunk-driving class in Oregon; an Oregon judge disagreed.)
It was a shame; I’d been looking forward to the match. Leben was a big name and coming off two Fight of the Night and Knockout of the Night performances in his last five outings. Beating ‘The Crippler’ would mean something to the fans and from the excited tones they spoke about him, it would clearly mean something to Joe Silva and Dana, too. Plus, Leben had been talking some crap about me in interviews and I preferred it when opponents made it a little personal.
Instead, Jason Day would be facing me from across the Octagon in London. Day was a polite Canadian who went about his work as unassumingly and professionally as a trade union worker. He had beaten Alan Belcher at UFC 83 in the first round.
‘Fair play to Jason for accepting the fight on even shorter notice than I have,’ I told the media on the conference call to announce the fight. ‘I want to thank him and look forward to a good fight in London.’
The short training camp and change of opponent didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was young and I loved what I did for a living. It wasn’t that I felt invincible, but I’d earned a rock-solid confidence in myself and my ability to read and adapt to what my opponent was doing. But the build-up to the contest was far from routine.
Two weeks out from the fight, my manager called and said one of his business partners was going to be in my corner at UFC 85. I was about to say, ‘Oh, that’s nice to hear,’ but of course he meant literally in my corner.
Quitters Never Win Page 14