These men have one foot out the door. An accident of fate saw Michael Bisping snatch the middleweight title in 2016 and he has held it to ransom, in search of a fight to cash out with, ever since. Georges St. Pierre's motivation is less clear. It could be that he still aches from the way that he left. It could be that he desperately needs the cash. Most likely, he is falling at that final hurdle that comes out of nowhere to flatten those very few chances of a 'happy ending' that we get in combat sports. Leaving the game on top is rare, but staying on the sidelines while others recall you in nostalgic terms and insist that you probably still have it is almost unheard of.

Four years ago, Georges St. Pierre in the superfight for the middleweight title would have been the biggest story in combat sports. Fans had been clamoring for St. Pierre to go up and test himself against Anderson Silva for years. In fact the 'summer of super fights'—a period of wild speculation which delivered a grand total of zero such contests—seemed to begin with that match up in mind. Here we are, four years after St. Pierre’s last bout and the wish of a St. Pierre middleweight title shot has been granted, but apparently some wishers were not careful enough with their wording. Instead of Anderson Silva, St. Pierre will be pitting himself against the new middleweight champion, Michael Bisping.

The Champion

Very few thought that Michael Bisping would ever be a world champion. In fact, most had already painted Bisping into the role of ‘best fighter to never win a UFC title’. But Bisping wasn’t content for his legacy to be that piece of niche trivia. After a spirited fight against Anderson Silva, wherein Bisping showed all the wiles he had learned under Jason Parillo and a heap of grit to boot, the Brit found himself dumped into a title fight on short notice. The story has it that Bisping walked off a movie set and into the cage on two weeks’ warning. After securing his knockout victory Bisping could be heard shouting to the camera “easiest fight of my life!” It didn’t change many minds though.

The shadow of Anderson Silva looms over this match up and over Bisping himself. Since Silva’s incredible run as middleweight champion, the crown has quickly slipped from each head that pops up to take it. Chris Weidman, the Silva Slayer, managed a couple of defences but was ousted by Luke Rockhold in emphatic fashion. Seeing the ease with which Rockhold dispatched Weidman, and how he had run through Bisping and Lyoto Machida to get the title shot, it seemed as if Rockhold might be the champ to challenge Silva’s accolades. Then Michael Bisping drew him forward and knocked him out inside a round, throwing everything into chaos.

That is perhaps Bisping’s greatest sin: he is as far from Anderson Silva as you could imagine. The champion is supposed to defy the chaos of fighting and provide some order. There's the champ, then there is everyone else. No one—not even Bisping's most emphatic fans—can pretend he has looked unbeatable. In his last fight he ducked the real contenders to take a squash match against a forty-six year old Dan Henderson and he damn near lost that one. Now Robert Whittaker has cleared out the fighters that Bisping was avoiding, and Bisping is ducking him in turn for a fight with a retired welterweight. He is holding the belt to ransom and when he does fight he isn’t impressive.

Bisping doesn’t typically show one punch knockout power, he doesn’t have crushing top control or slick submissions, but he does have one quality which is irreplaceable when crafting a master fighter: he can get the stuffing beaten out of him and still remember what he is supposed to be doing. He makes mistakes, he gets riled up and drawn out of his game, but Bisping’s story is one of constantly reining himself in. Let’s examine his style and his path to the title in video form: