Former UFC Middleweight Champion Michael Bisping announced his retirement earlier this year, ending a professional MMA career that spanned fourteen-plus year.
Israel Adesanya is a top ranked middleweight prospect who has beaten everybody put in front of him, but Bisping believes that Adesanya would prove to be an easy out of they fought.
“I like Israel Adesanya but I’ll tell you something, if there’s one person if you asked me who I want to fight right now, it would be Israel,” Bisping said on Believe You Me. “When I look at him - listen, he’s good, he’s great, but I’m sorry, I’m not buying it. I’m not saying I’m not impressed. I’m on the hype train. He’s good, he’s beating people. He’s beating the Marvin Vettoris of the world. He had a good win against Derek Brunson but Derek Brunson looked like sh*t. He was terrified. I think I would have an easy time with him. Just saying, just throwing it out there.”
Adesanya is fighting former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva next year at UFC 234, a fighter Bisping has already beaten by decision at UFC Fight Night 84.
Bisping may want to fight Adesanya one day, but he also says that Adesanya deserves that hype that precedes the fighter.
“He fought Derek Brunson and I thought Derek Brunson was going to give him a hard time but he made easy work of him,” Bisping said. “But Derek Brunson looked like sh*t. So now he’s fighting Anderson Silva and if he beats him - and it’s not fair to Israel - people will say, ‘Yeah, but he beat a 43-year-old Anderson Silva.’ It is a tricky one and it’s kind of a lose-lose because if beats him, he’ll get that, and if he loses, he got beat by a 43-year-old Anderson Silva. Fact of the matter is, he deserves the hype. He’s very exciting, he looks good, he fights with an exciting style, he’s entertaining on the microphone, inside the cage, outside I’m on the hype train, I think he’s great. I’m only saying I want to fight him from a competitive standpoint.”
There has been no comment from Adesanya on what Bisping has said, as he is focused on the aforementioned bout against Silva at UFC 234.
