If all goes according to plan the UFC’s hopes to pit Michael Bisping against Tim Kennedy at the TUF Nations: Canada Vs Australia finale on April 16th.
Both fighters have apparently verbally agreed to the fight, but Bisping it’s still pending due to the UFC wanting to take more time to medically assess Bisping who’s recovering from a career-threatening detached retina injury.
Assuming he gets the all-clear the fight, and at this stage there’s no guarantee of that, then it should be officially announced soon.
Prior to that injury Bisping had picked up a win over Alan Belcher, which coincidentally ended due to an accidental eye-poke that left Belcher unable to continue. It was an unfortunate end to the fight, but in fairness to ‘The Count’, he had been comfortably winning the fight up until that point late in the third round.
Meanwhile, Kennedy has got off to a strong start in the UFC since switching over from Strikeforce last year, notching up wins over Roger Gracie and Rafael Natal so far.
As has almost become customary nowadays when Bisping fights, there’s been trash-talk between him and his opponent.
In this case it was the former Army ranger, Kennedy, who was the instigator, making it known on multiple occasions that he wanted to beat down the Brit, and while Bisping has at times been dismissive of him, he’s now keen to see the two settle their differences in the Octagon.