Michael Bisping Calls Out Georges St-Pierre

A lifelong dream was recognized over a week ago when UFC veteran Michael ‘The Count’ Bisping downed the now-former champion Luke Rockhold in the main event of UFC 199, to capture the first UFC title in the Brit’s decade-long UFC career.

Now Bisping is as cocky and confident as ever, as he is prepared to take on all challengers for his first UFC title defense. In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour this week, Bisping spoke on who that challenger just might be:

“Well, you know of course, I’m no spring chicken,” he said. “I’m 37. It’s not like I’ve got 10 years ahead of me. There’s certain fights that I want, there’s certain people I’d like to get revenge on, and there’s certainly viable contenders. So there’s many different ways you can go and there are many ways you can look at things.

“”Now I know Chris Weidman is bitching and getting on like a 12-year-old on Instagram and stuff, talking about me and directing insults at me and this and that. The fact of the matter is that Chris just lost to the guy that I just knocked out.

He wasn’t scheduled to fight me, he was scheduled for a rematch with Luke Rockhold. So as far as I’m concerned, Chris Weidman needs to win a fight.

Chris Weidman is out of the equation. Chris Weidman is coming off a loss, and unless you’re called Chael Sonnen you don’t get title shots coming off a loss.”

Another viable contender the champion mentioned is No. 3-ranked Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, who is coming hot off of a first round thrashing of Vitor Belfort at UFC 198 in May:

“Jacare of course is a very, very viable contender,” he said. “So he’s certainly in the running. A rematch with Luke Rockhold, again, I think Luke should rematch with Chris and then whoever wins that is probably the No. 1 contender.

Yes me and Luke are one and one, but that first fight was two years ago and this rematch wasn’t even close. I knocked him out in three minutes.

I knocked him out cold, so maybe Chris and Luke, they have the match that was scheduled and the winner of that is the No. 1 contender.”

A rematch with Dan Henderson is also an intriguing matchup to Bisping, as the pair met at UFC 100 back in 2009 that saw Henderson putting Bisping to sleep early with a nasty right hand. Now with ‘Hendo’ coming towards the end of his career, and riding the momentum of the devastating knockout win over Hector Lombard at UFC 199, a rematch between the two makes sense now more than ever:

“Of course, there’s been talk about Dan Henderson, which kind of came out of the blue,” Bisping said. “Dan Henderson kind of tweeted it out, and Joe Rogan put a picture on Instagram, and that seems to be getting a lot of traction.

Of course, that is a fight that I would love. There hasn’t been any kind of offer or anything like that, but that’s a fight that I would take because everybody knows about UFC 100, and Dan Henderson still has an image of him floating above my head while I’m knocked out as his logo. So, I would like to put him in his place.”

“One thing I would like to do is defend the belt in the U.K.,” he said. “I would love to defend the belt in Manchester later in the year.”

Later in the interview Helwani asked Bisping on his thoughts of a potential showdown against former 170-pound king Georges St-Pierre, an idea that seemed to intrigue the new champ:

“It kind of has now that you mentioned it,” he said. “As you said, fighting Georges St-Pierre [would be] great, and of course for the title for who has the most wins in UFC history…I mean, that alone is a fantastic tagline and great promotion.

And of course, the numbers would be fantastic with Georges St-Pierre, he’s a massive, proven draw, and at the end of the day we’ll try to generate as much money as possible. 

“I do want to defend the belt, and I want to make as much money as I can in the process. So, I would certainly be open to sending Georges St-Pierre back to a movie set because that would be a fight I would definitely win and if Georges St-Pierre is listening, any time you fancy it, just be a man and sign on the dotted line and your return will be short-lived.”

“Whether it’s Georges St-Pierre, Dan Henderson, Jacare Souza — who ever it is, line them up and I’ll knock them down.”

(All transcribed quotes courtesy of MMA Fighting)

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