Bisping Claims At Least One More Fight

UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping has mentioned the possibility that his November 4th fight against Georges St-Pierre could be his last. That feeling seemingly changed when he was asked on a media call Thursday, if a retirement bout in his home country of England was also under consideration.

“I did say in the buildup that this could be my last fight… My wife and some people close to me – you know I’ve done this forever. I’ve been a fighter ever since I was a kid, I’ve been involved with martial arts and professional combat sports my entire life and I’m almost 40 now. You can’t do it forever and I am the champ so I’ve accomplished what I want to accomplish.

“That said though, I’ve enjoyed this training camp. I’ve enjoyed the process. I’ve enjoyed being a little bit out of shape and now going to the peak of physical fitness. It’s a great process. It feels good knocking people out in sparring. I live for this s**t. So yeah, there will definitely be at least one more fight and who knows? Maybe more after that. I don’t know though.”

Bisping may have defined his career at UFC 199 in 2016, when he pulled off a massive upset by knocking out Luke Rockhold inside of a round to capture the middleweight title. He went on to successfully defend it against Dan Henderson last October before taking a hiatus from competition.

 St-Pierre is also returning from a hiatus, though one St-Pierre’s has been nearly four years. Bisping used talk of his own potential retirement to take a jab at GSP.

“Georges should have stayed retired, he would have forever been a legend but he didn’t, he f**ked it up… He’s come out of retirement and he’s fallen into the trap that everyone falls into: He thinks he can beat me.”

However many fights Bisping has left, there’s no questioning that he has a career that would be hard to match. If he walks out of UFC 217 as the winner, Bisping will extend his record for most wins inside the Octagon (St-Pierre is one of the fighters currently behind him with 19), and The Count will be the only man to hold victories over St-Pierre and Anderson Silva.

Bisping is hesitant to look back as he is a week away from the biggest fight of his career, but he took a moment to acknowledge that he was proud of the mark he’s left on his corner of the MMA world.

“I don’t really try and think about those things too much, I don’t try and think about what I’ve accomplished and whatnot, but if I sit back and think about it, yeah, I’ve always been proud to represent England… Being the first world champion from Britain, that’s something I’m very proud of. The UK MMA scene is booming, we have tremendous fighting talent, and we have a solid presence now. On the more localized UFC shows, we see great talent on display all the time and it’s just going to get better and better.”