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It’s been several weeks since UFC 127 when Michael Bisping seemingly pissed off every MMA fan and fighter in existence when he illegally kneed Jorge Rivera then proceeded to spit on his corner after the fight. Bisping was smart to let everyone’s emotions cool down before the addressing the situation and now that the incident is yesterday’s news, Bisping has chosen to issue his apology and express his remorse in an interview with The Telegraph (though not without reiterating that he only intended to spit on the ground, not on Rivera’s actual cornerman).

“I went into the fight very angry. I let it get the better of me after the fight. I want to make it clear – I never spat on his cornerman.  I spat on the floor to let him know what I thought of him…I said some words…I’m not even sure what the words were now, that was immediately after the fight had finished.  After that, I instantly apologised. It was out of order.”

“As a father, as a mixed martial artist, or possibly even as a role model, it’s not a way I should be behaving.  It’s not how a mixed martial artist should be acting; not how any many should be acting. Of course, I do regret it, and I owe Dana [White, UFC CEO], and the UFC an apology and I won’t be acting like that again.”

Given that his apology was the primary message he wanted to get across, Bisping didn’t respond to any of the comments professional trash-talker Chael Sonnen made about him following the incident. But that doesn’t mean he won’t in the future. Bisping says he looks forward to “verbally sparring” with Sonnen if that’s the opponent the UFC lines up for him.

“People can talk smack about me all they like, they have in the past, you only have to look at any one of a number of websites out there…I have no problem with that. What [Jorge Rivera] was doing was that he was insinuating my partner had a sexually transmitted diseases, talking crap about my country, crap about my family, insinuating I was not even English, chanting a song that I was a d— d— d—,  it just went over the top really and  I shouldn’t have let it get to me. But it did.”

“If it is to be Chael Sonnen, he does trash talk a lot. But a lot of things that come out of his mouth I piss myself laughing; I think he’s hilarious. He comes out with good smack talk. If it was to be him next, I’d look forward to the verbal sparring, but I’m sure he wouldn’t go to the depths of offence that this guy [Rivera] did. It was out of order,  and if anyone went to those lengths again, I would simply not rise to it. I’m ashamed of myself and I have apologised, he [Rivera] should be man enough to do the same.”

As for his Bisping’s punishment, Dana White revealed last week that they didn’t give him his bonus. Bisping confirmed that, saying “after nearly every fight they have gone above and beyond the call of duty and given me a very, very generous bonus. And that didn’t happen this time.”

Image via Dan Herbetson for MMA Fighting

On this week’s edition of ESPN MMA Live, Jon Anik and crew recap UFC 127 and UFC on Versus 3 and preview tonight’s Strikeforce “Feijao vs. Henderson” card.

ESPN MMA Live Archive

If you have trouble playing the video, you can also watch it on ESPN.com.

Dana White confirmed on the UFC on Versus 3 pre-show that Michael Bisping is “in trouble” for spitting on Jorge Rivera’s corner but didn’t reveal what the punishment will be. Dana also thinks the illegal knee was intentional.

“I did see Michael Bisping’s fight, and I was very disappointed in his behaviour. Spitting on Jose Riviera’s cornermen brought disgrace to himself, to the sport, and to all fighters, me included. That’s why, first and foremost, Michael Bisping owes ME an apology… As someone with much more experience than him, at a much higher level of competition, I am his superior and his behavior warrants an apology to me. Now you might say that’s a bit of abstract reasoning… but there’s another reason he better apologize to me first, and it has to do with his own self-interest… I happen to know, from one of my very highly-placed sources at the UFC, that Michael Bisping’s ‘goodwill account’ is seriously overdrawn with the company. He’s on very thin ice wearing really sharp skates, if you know what I mean. So, there are only TWO possible outcomes for him: He can fight ME, or he can get released…”

—Chael Sonnen telling Fighter’s Only Magazine that Michael Bisping owes him an apology for spitting on Jorge Rivera’s corner

Only Chael Sonnen could come up with that kind of logic. You can read the rest at Fighter’s Only, but I think you get the point. Something tells me this is just the first of many public rants about Michael “Spitsbing” we’ll hear in the coming months.

Image via Dave Mandel for Sherdog

Pretty much everyone thought Jon Fitch deserved to get the W or at least thought the draw was appropriate in his UFC 127 main event bout against BJ Penn. Well, everyone except Dana White (and Matt Hughes). Dana didn’t make it to the UFC 127 post-fight press conference because he had to catch his flight, but he did give his thoughts on the fight to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. He thinks BJ should have won the decision.

“I didn’t think it was a draw,” White told ESPN.com. “I looked at the scorecards and the two judges who had it a draw scored the first two rounds for Penn and the third round a 10-8 [for Fitch].

“Personally, I scored the first two rounds for Penn and had him winning the fight. There’s no doubt B.J. got pounded in the third round, but that wasn’t a 10-8 round.”

Penn’s former nemesis and training partner for the Fitch fight, Matt Hughes, echoed Dana’s sentiments on his blog, and added that round three should have been a 10-9 because Fitch didn’t try to end the fight.

…I really thought BJ had won the first two rounds and, of course, the third round is nothing but Fitch. He gets a takedown early and lays on BJ the rest of the fight. I do think BJ did a good job avoiding strikes and it was a little disappointing seeing Fitch not do anything to try to end the fight. That round to me was a 10-9 round for Fitch.. A lot of people don’t understand the judging criteria, in boxing you can give a 10-8 round pretty easily because there are a lot more rounds. In fighting you just can’t do that. With 3 rounds to judge, a 10-8 has to be a pretty dominant round. With Fitch doing nothing to end the fight, that was not a 10-8 round, in my opinion. I even had one person comment on my forum that it could have been a 10-7 round… ???

Maybe I need to go back and watch the fight again, but when it was live it looked to me like Fitch was at least trying to finish BJ in the third round. He didn’t go balls out like Shane Carwin did when he fought Brock Lesnar but he was consistently hitting him with shot after shot after shot. I don’t know what constitutes a dominant round in their eyes, but Fitch outstruck BJ 134-0 in round three, according to CompuStrike. If that’s not a dominant round, I don’t know what is.

For the record, Dana White doesn’t hate Jon Fitch as some of the rumors going around suggested.

Image via Daniel Herbertson for MMA Fighting

Michael Bisping earned himself plenty of scorn from MMA fans and a possible suspension and fine from the UFC for spitting on Jorge Rivera’s corner immediately following their grudge match at UFC 127. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that condoned Bisping’s actions Saturday night, but before you pass anymore judgment on him, his camp would at least like you to hear their side of the story. The Wolfslair MMA Academy’s Anthony McGann recently issued a statement that places most of the blame on Rivera’s boxing coach, Matt Phinney.

“I would like to give our take on what happened in Australia. Let me begin first by saying that in five years of competing in the UFC at every level, we have never encountered a more unprofessional outfit as Jorge Rivera’s camp. All the teams who rub shoulders regularly at all the events are always polite, respectful and courteous to each other. Regardless of any of the fighters smack talk or actions. all the camps will attest to this. Along comes this Phinney guy out of the blue, he is Rivera’s boxing coach and the guy who features heavily in the YouTube videos making fun of Mike Bisping.”

“These video’s were made with two purposes. One was to promote their tee shirt line ranger up and the second was to goad Mike into a brawl as this was their only chance of winning the fight. Okay well no problem so far, business is business and if that’s how they rely to win a fight then more power to them. The video’s poked fun at Mike in a personal way and to English people in general and had a huge amount of success. If you combine the numbers on YouTube over the four video’s I believe were in the half million bracket. That is phenomenal considering the campaign was over three weeks. So let’s be clear this wasn’t just banter going back and forth it was significant. Once again at this stage still no problem. It was adding hype to the fight.”

“The real problems begin in the hotel in Australia. As always fighters are staying in close proximity in the hotel for over a week and during the day the camps pass each other. Normally the fighters will be tense with their opponent but the teams always remain neutral and polite. Rivera’s crew were mocking mike and laughing at him and Jorge even gave an interview to Fanhouse saying if Mike was a man he would confront him in the hotel.”

“This situation was the reason for the emotional weigh-ins and throughout the catalyst was Phinney. In fact Rivera had two more coaches who never participated in any of this, they did act professional. It was always Rivera and Phinney. If you look at all the ranger up YouTube stuff it seems Phinney is the driving force behind the company and it was him even up to the point on the scale who was constantly goading Mike. I believe he should have concentrated more on real fight preparation like we did than silly childish games and behaviour.”

“This fight was not your normal fight, the hype was immense and I am sure the fans felt this. The illegal knee was what it was, Mike was over excited and timed it wrong. He is not known for illegal blows although this does happen in the sport from time to time. Whilst Rivera was recovering, Phinney was shouting obscenities to Mike if you look you can see Mike give him the finger in reply. He was also hurling abuse at our corner men, once again this behaviour is unheard of in the UFC. Anyway YouTube videos and goading Mike did him no good and Mike dispatched him with ease.”

“Mike was still emotional and asked Rivera for an apology, still Phinney was shouting abuse and Mike replied to him, Mike did spit but on the floor in his direction not on him. Phinney was hurling abuse at Mike and our corner men the whole time. His behaviour at the cage was disgusting and unbefitting of the UFC and I won’t go into any more detail as Phinney doesn’t deserve any notoriety. He does not reflect in anyway the normal conduct of us and the rest of the teams. If that’s how he has behaved at other events then he needs to go back to them. Although I believe that after this we won’t be hearing much of Mr Phinney anymore.”

“Mike apologised in the press conference for losing his cool, he apologised on the post fight with Joe Rogan, the joke is after all the efforts the Rivera’s camp made to create this situation it was them who complained afterwards not us, we have more respect for the UFC and did not want to make an issue of their behaviour.”

Anthony McGann
Wolfslair MMA Academy

Look, I can understand Mr. McGann’s frustrations with the situation. No one likes a grown man that acts like he’s still in high school. However, that still doesn’t excuse Bisping for his actions. Provoked or not, spitting on someone (or in their direction), on the sport’s largest stage no less, is far more “childish” than any of the videos Rivera and his camp produced. Part of being a “professional,” which Bisping claims to be, is having the ability to control your emotions. That’s clearly something Bisping has yet to master.

Image via Daniel Herbertson for MMA Fighting

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Brian Ebersole may have failed to connect with his cartwheel kicks against Chris Lytle at UFC 127, but after watching the video above, you’ll see why he tried. Poor Shannon Forrester had no idea what was coming.

Speaking of Ebersole-Lytle, it turns out Lytle was far from 100% when they fought Saturday night. MMA Fighting is reporting that Lytle underwent knee surgery four weeks before the fight to have an injured meniscus removed. Lytle has kept the surgery under wraps because he didtn’t want to use it as an excuse or take away from Ebersole’s win. Lytle may be getting tired of the injuries too because according to his agent, Ken Pavia, Lytle is now considering retirement.

“He’s considering his options, and retirement is one of them,” said Pavia, who added that Lytle is likely to take some time before making any decision.

“He’ll never use that stuff as an excuse, and the reason he tried to keep this quiet is because he wants to make sure that Ebersole gets all the credit in the world for his win, and for livening up the fight,” he said.

UFC 127 marked Lytle’s 53rd professional MMA fight. I’d say he deserves a peaceful retirement if that’s what he chooses.

Video tip via MiddleEasy

Dana White has confirmed with MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta that he will discipline Michael Bisping for spitting on Jorge Rivera’s corner immediately following the conclusion of their co-main event bout at UFC 127.

Dana hasn’t yet decided if the punishment be a suspension, fine or both, but perhaps it could come in the form of Vitor Belfort’s fists. He declared after the fight that he wants a piece of Bisping in May.

Here’s the illegal knee if you missed it:

Gifs via MMA-Core.com

Rener and Ryron Gracie break down all the jiu-jitsu used during UFC 127, including the techniques used by BJ Penn and Jon Fitch in the main event. As always, it’s an excellent technical analysis for anyone interested in learning about the jiu-jitsu techniques the top fighters use in the cage.

Gracie breakdown archive

HT: Gracie University