Michael Bisping certainly did enough to defeat Alan Belcher tonight at UFC 159, but unfortunately the ending was marred by an unintentional eyepoke.
Belcher goes for a kick and misses to start the fight, Bisping lands a leg kick of his own.
A brief feeling out process and Belcher lands a side kick and a body kick before Bisping attempts to catch another one, but doesn’t quite get it.
Light body kick from Bisping and a side kick to the body from Belcher.
Bisping pushing forward and lands a couple of punches. Belcher again responds with kicks.
A few more kicks exchanged and Belcher comes over the top with a right hand to follow.
Bisping lands a nice right hand of his own, and soon after Belcher scores with a right hand too.
Quite a cautious start from both men here and they have to take a small pause as Bisping deals with an eyepoke.
They get back to it and Belcher stumbles as they attempt to strike. Bisping follows up with a couple of punches. Bisping lands a good right hand as the round ends.
Round two underway and they meet each other half way. Bisping lands a right hand.
More cautious work from both men, then Bisping lands a high kick and a punch behind it.
Belcher tries to take the fight to Belcher but he’s met with a good right hand from Bisping that forces him to reset.
A little more workrate coming from Bisping as he lands some light leg kicks and again finds a home for the right hand. He then pieces together a nice combination with a kick to follow.
Not a great deal coming from Belcher – he does land a right, but Bisping fires back with a better one. Another combination from Bisping connects and Belcher takes a deep breath, but seems ok.
Another little combo from Bisping. Into the final minute of the round and finally Belcher comes to life a little and a hard punch back up the Brit. Coming forward Belcher hits the target again, but Bisping bites down on his gumshield and starts to fire back and finishes the round with a nice flurry of strikes.
Belcher starts the third by lurching forward looking to land a heavy blow, but he misses.
The right hand’s been successful for Bisping all fight and he finds it again a few times in the first minute while Belcher only gets one meaningful punch in response.
Bisping keeping his workrate high and Belcher doesn’t seem to quite be able to hang with the tempo. High kick from him, but Belcher’s ok.
Little flurries of strikes from the UK fighter, he’s putting together some nice technical work here, though not really appearing to hurt Belcher particularly.
Belcher looks for a takedown, but it’s easily stuffed. More of the same follows and then with less than a minute to go there’s an eyepoke to Belcher and he goes to the floor in clear pain.
Not good as Belcher’s had serious problems with his right eye in the past that required surgery. His eye appears to be bleeding and there’s no option but to call a halt to the fight, and so we’re headed to the second technical decision of the evening.
Based on the scorecards up until that point in the fight Bisping is considered to be the victor by unanimous decision (30-27 x2, 29-28).
