Michael Bisping: ‘I’m Not Fighting Nick Diaz, It’s All Total Bulls***’
Rumours of Michael Bisping fighting Nick Diaz surfaced earlier this week, but the former UFC middleweight champion has moved to deny the rumours.
Bisping finished 2017 with two defeats at the back end of the year after losing his 185-pounds title to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217 and then losing to Kelvin Gastelum just three weeks later at the UFC’s first ever event in mainland China at UFC Shanghai.
The Brit is currently undecided on whether or not he will take a retirement fight, but earlier this week a rumour surfaced that a fight was in the works between himself and Diaz.
Taking to his podcast this week, Bisping addressed the rumour and took no prisoners with the media outlets who started it.
“You know why? [Because] it’s true. It is – I’m fighting [Nick] Diaz in LA,” Bisping said sarcastically. “For the sake of people who want to take a little clip and make this go fucking viral – I’m fighting Nick Diaz in Los Angeles.”
“No, no. I’m not fighting Nick Diaz, it’s all total bullshit. I haven’t spoken to the UFC about anything, they haven’t even come to me. In fact, I’m a little bit offended the Ultimate Fighting Championship – what the fuck?”
Bisping then went on to explain how he and Diaz had talked about a fight during a moment they ran into each other in New York. He the reiterated that a fight between the two of them hadn’t been spoken about since.
“So here’s the deal with Nick Diaz,” Bisping said. “A while ago I was in New York. I was doing some PR stuff for the UFC and I went to a club, actually, with a friend of mine, couple of friends and lo and behold – there was Nick Diaz.
“Great guy, we hung out, we had some drinks, we had a good time and he suggested that we should fight each other at 170. And I’m like ‘I can’t do 170, so we were talking about a catchweight and I said ‘Nick, I’d love to, man. You’ve got a huge name in this sport,’ you know? It was a very pleasant conversation. There was no nastiness, you know what I mean? There was no bitching. I was like ‘come on dude, you have to come up, making 185 kills me’ and this and that.”
“But really I think we were just having fun with it more than anything. It never materialized into any actual real discussion of a fight, and of course since then he got banned or suspended – that whole thing with the weed which was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Fortunately, the commission did the right thing and he’s back. But I don’t know were these rumors started, I don’t know who started it but it’s bullshit. I haven’t heard a single thing. The UFC haven’t reached out, my management haven’t reached out – no one has said anything, no word what so ever.”
While he doesn’t plan on fighting Diaz anytime soon, Bisping does has a lot of respect for both of the Diaz brothers. If Bisping does fights again he wants to do it at 205-pounds which makes it almost impossible that Diaz will be the man standing across the Octagon from him.
“They’ are fighters, as simple as that, and that’s what I respect about them,” Bisping said. “Nick Diaz is someone who I definitely respect and if there was a possibility of that fight, then for sure I would accept that, you know? People would want to see that.”
“The only issue is that if I do fight, I want it at 205 and I don’t think Nick would do 205. Because making 185 for the last, you know, ten years – it’s been so hard. Making 185 for me is not an easy task. It’s not an easy task at all. And if I’m going to fight one more time, it’s going to be at light heavyweight. Or I do a catchweight, you know, maybe a 195 or whatever. But making 185 for me is too hard. So if Nick would be willing to come up then I’ll do it, I’ll accept. If he comes up to 195 or something like that, I’m down, I’m in – sign me up!”
Looks like we will have to wait and see if Bisping ever puts on the UFC gloves one last time.
