Over the past few weeks Middleweight champion Michael Bisping has been calling out the likes of Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz to fight him at UFC 206 in December, but he’s now ruled out the possibility of fighting No.3 contender Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza instead.
Bisping decided to speak up on the ‘UFC Tonight’ show on FOX Sports 1 last night after ‘Jacare’s’ manager accused him of running from a fight with the Brazilian, whose previously scheduled fight with Luke Rockhold at UFC Fight Night 101 fell through this week due to his opponent suffering a knee injury.
“As you all know, I fought Dan Henderson very recently,” Bisping stated. “I’ve got a busted orbital, I’m getting injections in my knee.”
With that in mind, the mind boggles at why Bisping was even entertaining the possibility of fighting an all-time great like GSP in less than two months time, but ‘The Count’ explains that it was a payday that would have been too good to refuse.
“Now I know what everyone at home is going to say: ‘Didn’t you call out GSP a couple weeks ago?'” Bisping said. “Yes, I did, but really, think about this, that was a massive payday, roughly $3-4 million I would have earned from that fight. Against Jacare, I’m going to get around about a quarter.”
So, Bisping has now ruled himself out of fighting at UFC 206, but he was keen to stress that he’ll still end up fighting one of the top contenders when he’s healed up.
“I’m assuming they’re saying that I’m ducking Jacare. I’ve never ducked anybody in my life. … Next week, Yoel and Weidman are fighting. Whoever wins, either that guy, or Jacare, will be my next fight, make no mistake. But I’m not doing it in a few weeks.”
