The champ is here.

This weekend was a relative disaster for the NYSAC, with Daniel Cormier possibly gaming the system to make weight for his title defense and Pearl Gonzalez being removed from her fight for about 10 minutes due to a ridiculous rule. But the biggest fustercluck was in the co-main event bout between Gegard Mousasi and Chris Weidman.

In the second round, Mousasi landed a pair of legal knees on Weidman which Dan Miragliotta said were illegal. Miragliotta then changed his mind after John McCarthy viewed the replay, resulting in Miragliotta attempting to restart the fight only to have the ringside physicians stop the bout, giving Mousasi an extremely controversial TKO victory. With a hot topic issue like this featuring two contenders in his division, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping was obviously going to comment.

Speaking about the event on his podcast Believe You Me, Bisping blamed the entire snafu on Weidman, saying that the former middleweight champion was trying to game the system.

“The real talking point isn’t whether or not they were sloppy and how s**t Mousasi’s takedown defense was, and, yet again, how sloppy Chris’s striking is,” Bisping said. “The controversy and the talking point is the end of the fight.

“Weidman went in for yet another telegraphed takedown attempt, Mousasi kind of sprawled, kind of had him in a headlock position and from here, Chris tried to manipulate the rules. ... If a person has one hand on the floor, in the past that was a downed opponent. What people used to do was, they used to touch the floor with that hand and then they couldn’t be kneed in the face, when realistically, they didn’t need to put that hand on the floor, they were totally manipulating the rules so they couldn’t be kneed.

“At a weigh-in, you try to make weight any way you can. At a fight, you’re supposed to be a man and f**king fight, not manipulate the rules and put one hand on the ground or two hands on the ground. Be a man, stand up, fight, go out there, tooth and nail, bite down on your mouthpiece and lets f**king do this.”

Bisping didn’t stop there though. The middleweight champion went on to say that not only was Weidman “playing the game,” he was also hamming up his injury to try and earn a disqualification win.

“Chris Weidman has only got himself to blame for that fight being finished,” Bisping said. “... It appeared, initially, that it was two illegal strikes. So Weidman thought he had five minutes. But come on, man, talk about an Oscar winning performance. He was laying it on thick. He thought he had five minutes but he was rolling around on the floor, clutching his head, [saying] ‘uhhhhhh.’ He was putting on a real performance here. He even rolled back from being on his knees on his backside.

“Because he was acting so hurt and so injured, the commission said, ‘no, you’re not continuing to fight,’ so they called it a TKO. I don’t know if that was the right decision, but Weidman was trying to win via a disqualification or, at the very most, trying to get a point deducted from Mousasi.”

Bisping himself is no stranger to controversial knees. In his fight with Anderson Silva, Silva landed a jumping knee at the end of the third round that seriously hurt Bisping. Silva jumped on top of the cage and celebrated his knockout victory only to be informed that the fight had not been stopped. Bisping went on to recover from the knockdown and win a unanimous decision and he compared his own experience to how, in his opinion, Weidman handled the situation on Saturday, saying that the former champion was being “a little b**ch.”

“At the end of the day, when those knees were delivered — and they were legal knees, we know that with the benefit of slo-mo replay — Weidman put on a performance,” Bisping said. “He rolled around on the floor. He clutched his head like a six-year-old that bangs his head and wants a Band-Aid from his mommy! He was holding his head like a little kid! ‘Uhhh, mommy, mommy, I’ve hurt my head.’ And then he tumbles back onto his backside and he’s rolling around on the floor looking so sorry for himself.

“I fought Anderson Silva. At the end of the third round, my mouthpiece came out, he dives up in the air, knees me in the face, opens stitches all over my face — I needed about 20 stitches in my face — I’m on the floor. As he kneed me, the buzzer went. Did I roll around on the floor going ‘mummy, mummy, please help.’ No! I got up, wiped the blood off my face, stuck my mouthpiece in, took a breath, had a sip of water, then went back out and fought. I didn’t roll around like a little b**ch on the floor hoping that the commission would give me a win by default. That’s what he did!

“Just like Daniel Cormier tried to manipulate his weight with that towel, Chris Weidman tried to manipulate the outcome of that fight due to that legal knee.“

MUST-READ STORIES

Fiasco. New Jersey asks the ABC to reconsider the new grounded fighter rules after UFC 210.

Appeal. Anthony Johnson’s team will file an official appeal to Cormier’s UFC 210 weigh-in.

Tired. Daniel Cormier comments on UFC 210 towelgate.

Risky. Ronaldo Souza will become a free agent after his fight with Robert Whittaker this weekend.

Nope. Charles Oliveira wants to return to featherweight despite constant weight issues.

Bones. Jon Jones says he “highly recommends” taking male enhancement pills.

VIDEO STEW

DJ’s media lunch.

Waterson’s media lunch.

Lookin’ for a fight.

TTTHS.

Jeff Mayweather responding to Dana’s trash talk.

Always a good day when we get new BJJ scout.

LISTEN UP

MMAnalyst. Luke discusses the regulatory disaster that was Weidman-Mousasi.

Brit Pack. UFC 210 aftermath discussion by Simon.

CME. The fellas talk about the weekend, NYSAC, towelgate, and everything else..

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Parting message.

DC finally embracing the hate.

When you think about it like that, Moose deserves to get paid.

@MikeBohnMMA One appearance on the prelims of UFC 200 and that event I almost fought DC as the headline bout before they chose to go with anderson — Gegard Mousasi (@mousasi_mma) April 10, 2017

Friends.

Making a living isn't life, lifelong friendships are what we live for, my bond w @Anthony_Rumble is unbreakable, built on all that is right! — Mike Goldberg (@MFG16) April 10, 2017

HE’S MOTIVATED AGAIN, GUYS.

Marinovich just got to Hawaii. Thanks for coming to help out A post shared by BJ Penn (@bjpenn) on Apr 10, 2017 at 10:00am PDT

Jucao showing you the “best diet ever.”

Hardo.

lol that's a fake account on IG plus I don't know who Liam is? But if he wants this work 1705 I street Sacramento, California https://t.co/kMMuL3BPwe — Cody Garbrandt (@Cody_Nolove) April 10, 2017

USADA.

Koa is tired because #USADA woke us up early this morning but Koa also prefers a clean sport as do I so we sacrifice sleep. #mastiff #ufcsw… pic.twitter.com/D0dDAl75HZ — Chris Camozzi (@ChrisCamozzi) April 10, 2017

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

N/A.

TODAY IN MMA HISTORY

2009: Nick Diaz stopped Frank Shamrock with punches at Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz.

2014: Roy Nelson knocked out Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera in the main event of UFC Fight Night 39.

Also that evening, Vladimir Matyushenko was submitted by Joey Beltran in his retirement fight at Bellator 116.

2015: Mirko Cro Cop avenged his loss to Gabriel Gonzaga, stopping him in the third round of the main event of UFC Fight Night 64. It was Cro Cop’s last fight in the UFC.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bisping is the perfect heel. If you listen to the whole podcast, he tries so hard to be nice to Weidman at first but eventually he can’t help it and the s**t talk comes out.

That’s all folks. Have a good one and see y’all tomorrow.

If you find something you'd like to see in the Morning Report, just hit me up on Twitter @JedKMeshew and let me know about it. Also follow MMAFighting on Instagram and add us on Snapchat at MMA-Fighting because we post dope things and you should enjoy it.