Michael Bisping spent most of October lobbying for a fight against either Georges St. Pierre or Nick Diaz, but now appears to be unwilling to sub in for an injured Luke Rockhold at Fight Night 101. Rockhold was forced to withdraw from his scheduled rematch with Jacare Souza later this month, a fight which would have had title implications.
While Bisping was eager to fight either GSP or Nick Diaz at UFC 206 on December 10th, he is now stating that he is too injured to face Jacare Souza on November 27th. And even when Souza’s manager suggested they could move the bout to UFC 206, Bisping was still having none of it.
Melbourne’s Fight Night 101 event will now be headlined by Derek Brunson (#8MW) vs Robert Whittaker (#7MW).
The UFC Middleweight Division
UFC’s middleweight division has been in a state of chaos following Bisping’s surprising victory over Luke Rockhold at UFC 199. Now the division has 3-5 fighters with potential claims to the next title shot (Weidman,Rockhold, Souza and maybe Silva and Romero). The only other weight class in the sport that is as clogged at the top is the women’s bantamweight division.
Jacare Souza had seemingly earned a title shot by defeating Vitor Belfort at UFC 198, but events have not worked out in his favour since. Also hurting Jacare’s claim to a title shot is his loss to Yoel Romero at UFC 194. While Romero did fail a drug test stemming from that bout, his victory was never officially over-turned, and it is unclear how the results from that bout will factor into a possible title match for either fighter.
If a fighter wins, but fails an out-of-competition drug test shortly after, do you count their victory? The record books do (so long as it is an out-of-competition test) but that is not a guarantee that Dana White and the UFC will.
Jacare might be out of luck when it comes to the next title fight as well. Should Chris Weidman defeat Yoel Romero at 205, it would be tough to deny the former 3x defending champion a title fight. If Romero defeats Weidman on the other hand, Yoel would seemingly have a better claim to a title fight than Jacare because of the results from their bout at 194.
Bisping filling in for an injured Luke Rockhold at Fight Night 101 was most likely Jacare’s only shot at getting the next title fight in the division. And judging by comments Bisping made on “UFC Tonight” recently, he is in no hurry to fight Jacare.
