Michael Bisping was gracious in defeat last night after dropping to a somewhat controversial unanimous decision loss to Chael Sonnen at UFC On FOX 2, despite feeling he had done enough to win.
“First of all, congratulations to Chael Sonnen,” Bisping told Fuel TV’s Ariel Helwani after the fight. “He obviously did enough in the judges eyes to win the fights to congratulations to Chael.
Personally I think I won the first two rounds. I think there’s no question he got the third round, although if I had another round I probably would have stopped him I feel.”
Bisping wasn’t the only person who though so – UFC president Dana White also stated post-fight that he believed Bisping had won, and according to Bisping even Sonnen was coming to that conclusion prior to the official announcement.
“[Sonnen] even said to me after the fight, before the decision was announced, he said, “What do you think, Mike?” I said, “Honestly I think I got the first two rounds”, and he said, “I think you might be right.””
Nevertheless he’s remaining philosophical about the fourth loss of his 26 fight career.
“I always try my best to put on entertaining fights. I feel that was a good fight. You’ve always got supporters, you’ve always got haters, for want of a better word. I’ll always have my detractors, I don’t give it a second thought. People always ask me about it, that’s why I seem to talk about it. If you didn’t ask I wouldn’t mention that.
What concerns me is going out and putting on great fights and providing for my wife and children, you know. That’s the bottom line for me. I wanted to win tonight. I obviously didn’t do enough.”
He also dismisses the idea that he would have had a better chance of winning if he had a full training camp to focus on beating Sonnen.
“No, I don’t think that’s the issue. I mean, I pretty much had a full training camp. I was training for a different fight, but my cardio was there. I think I’ve only got myself to blame in the third round.”
In hindsight he wishes he had got to his feet quicker when Sonnen took him down early in the third, but he says he was worried about leaving himself exposed as he got back to his feet.
Watch the full interview below.
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