Luke Rockhold was patiently awaiting his UFC 199 rematch against Chris Weidman as yet another chance to validate himself as one of the best fighters in MMA today, but a Weidman injury spoiled the plan. Now, on two weeks notice, Michael Bisping has stepped up and is finally getting his long sought-after UFC title shot. But, we’ve seen this story before, and the ending was brutal on the brash, British fighter. Luke Rockhold became the first (and only) man to submit Bisping in a one-sided affair when the two middleweights met in 2014. Now, the stakes are the highest they can be, but Luke Rockhold believes the result will be the same, if not worse for Bisping.

We spoke briefly to UFC middleweight champ Luke Rockhold about this sudden change of plans for his first title defense, and how he plans on running the middleweight universe for the foreseeable future.

So now we’re here. Can you even envision Michael Bisping finally winning UFC gold?

(Laughs) My job is to never make that possible. It’s funny to even think of it, but I know what’s in front of me, so I know it’s not gonna happen.

How does it feel fighting someone you’ve already defeated, but with higher stakes?

My gameplan doesn’t change, my focus doesn’t change, my routine doesn’t change. I stick to my plan and I go about my business the way I’ve been going about it my whole career. I go back to studying a little bit different, go back to some old techniques, but it’s not anything much different than what I was up against. Less wrestling, more boxing, so it’s just a nice change, rather than someone who will just try to wrestle me. So yeah, nothing much changes right now.

Do you think Bisping deserves the title shot?

Given the layout right now, I think it makes sense for Bisping to get it. Jacare obviously had a controversial fight with Yoel Romero, more controversy grew after the fight. (Ed. Yoel Romero failed a post-fight drug test.) That loss was taken off his record, right? I guess I don’t exactly know what happened to that…

It’s currently still a split-decision loss.

Yeah, so Bisping is the only guy with a winning streak, then. He’s at the top of the game with a win over “greatest of all time.” So I think it makes a lot of sense right now.

Did you watch his fight with Anderson?

I did, I was actually cage-side.

What did you think about that? Because that was a very strange fight.



Yeah, it was a weird fight. It was a weird fight. Who knows? I mean, you never knew what Anderson was gonna be like back from the layoff and whether those chemicals played mind games with yourself sometimes. From what I’ve seen in the past, these guys, they hesitate without that, so I knew he was gonna be hesitating and Bisping was gonna be Bisping. Bisping always fights to his ability. He’s not gonna know if or when or what Anderson is gonna do. You know what Bisping’s gonna do. He’s gonna go in there, he’s gonna fight his fight no matter who he’s up against, he’s gonna come in and do the best he can. And that’s kind of what I expected.

Did you think that fight needed to be stopped after Anderson hit him with that flying knee?

I mean, Bisping wasn’t technically out. I think it was a weird situation. It was favorable, obviously, to Anderson, since Bisping didn’t understand the rules quite well and complained about the eye poke, or whatever the hell it was, at the time. So I think that favored Anderson, that led to the flying knee. People want to talk like Anderson easily won the fight, but that flying knee was pretty much a mistake from Bisping to turn away and take advantage of an eye poke that wasn’t…you know, you gotta be on your game. So I think Bisping dominated the rest of that fight, that was the big change in the fight at that point due to the eye.