AP Let me argue with my former self for a minute. Count me among the Michael Bisping critics and detractors. Always had him pegged as a guy who may reach the big fights but never win them. You throw out his record and I throw out the ‘who’s he beaten’ argument. He still hasn’t gotten over the hump, missing out on a title shot by losing a unanimous decision to Chael Sonnen on Saturday.
But, previously, I said that a win over Sonnen may change people’s opinions of him. Well, he lost and may have done so anyway. You could make the argument that Bisping won the first two rounds and thus should have won the fight. Regardless of the outcome, his performance had to impress.
As he predicted before the fight, whenever he got taken down, he was able to get right back up. Bisping kept so active on his back that Sonnen was forced to choose between holding him down or landing a punch or two as he scrambled back to his feet. It wasn’t until the final round that Sonnen was able to keep Bisping on the ground and attack at the same time. And when Sonnen pushed Bisping up against the cage, Bisping was often able to reverse the position. It was not what was expected. He was able to hold his own in the wrestling department against one of the best in the division. Sonnen could never find his comfort zone.
Bisping landed big punches on the feet as well.
“Michael Bisping hit me so hard in the first round that I didn’t even know what day it was,” Sonnen said to MixedMartialArts.com. “I remember when I came to, looking at him and thinking, ‘Oh my God, you have no idea how bad you hurt me or you’d step in and do something about it.”
The win came by way of takedowns and one man being on offense more often while the other played defense. This was a close fight that could have gone either way and nobody could have blamed the judges for the outcome, which turned out to be 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.
“You can have a 30-27 fight that is still very close 30-27,” Sonnen said. “If it would have gone the other way, I don’t know if I’d be complaining.”
Most expected Sonnen to dominate the fight with takedowns and his ground-and-pound and cruise to a win. Bisping may have lost, but he was far from dominated and didn’t look overwhelmed or outmatched. Things just didn’t go his way. He may never be good enough to fight for the title, but he’s earned a lot of respect and credibility from those of us who doubted his skills.
Perhaps he would have lost to Anderson Silva anyway. It’s a safe assumption. But perhaps he wouldn’t have done as badly as expected. Maybe he would have won a couple rounds, made it interesting. Maybe he would’ve taken Silva down a couple times. Maybe he would’ve hurt him at some point. I won’t be selling him short anymore. I may not pick him, but I’ll give him a shot against anybody.
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Previously in The Beatdown …
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Tim Gilmour is a sports reporter and author of the humor blog LetMeThinkForYou.com. For more NBCSports.com MMA coverage, click here.
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- michiganhockey11 - Feb 2, 2012 at 8:48 AM
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Tim,
I have to agree to a point. I thought this fight was going to be a good one on Saturday. Bisping did a good job defending, but it was still a bit of a blah fight. All the fights truly were. Was as a friends house and during the Evans/Davis fight even my buddies wife said, “wow, this fight is kinda boring”. Was it better than Fox’s first endevor with Dos Santos and Velasquez? Yeah. Did we see takedowns and great striking, not so much. After all the posturing and grappling between the first 2 fights, I kinda wished there were more guys like the Iceman (yes, he sucked the last half dozen fights he had) that could throwdown with any appendage.
My nostalgia was cut short as they started doing promo’s for the Evans/Davis fight and showed the clip of Evans knocking out Liddell.
Jones looked “real excited” to fight Evans after the fight…yeah right. Machida had the better chance between those two (Karate Blitz all day). Henderson, who allegedly might get a shot at Jones has the wrestling game (wasn’t he on an Olympic team?) and some heavy hands, but I don’t see him getting close enough.
Dana White should give us what the fans want. Have Anderson Silva fight a class up against Jones. It’ll never happen, but it would be nice.
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- Tim_Gilmour - Feb 7, 2012 at 5:05 PM
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I think I agree with everything you said. Hey, even when Chuck was on his way downhill his fights were exciting. Wasn’t thrilled by FOX 2. It was better only in that it killed more of my day. I prefer FOX 1. Short, but sweet. Machida looked incredible against Jones if you ask me.
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- michiganhockey11 - Feb 8, 2012 at 4:54 PM
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That’s the sweet thing about having a background in a karate discipline. Karate is all about the counter and Jones had absolutely no answer for Machida’s counterstrikes. Darn standing guillotine……
