Michael Bisping Officially Announces His Retirement

Michael Bisping Officially Announces His Retirement

By Dan McConnell

Former UFC Middleweight Champion and winner of series 3 of The Ultimate Fighter, Michael Bisping has officially announced his retirement from mixed martial arts.

Michael Bisping brings the curtain down on a 13 year storied career that saw Bisping establish himself as one of the most successful and veteran fighters in the sport. During this time ‘The Count’ was the pioneer for MMA in the UK and holder of man accolades.

Even recently Bisping was still open to having one more fight before officially retiring since losing the UFC Middleweight title to George Saint Pierre then coming off a quick turn-around knockout loss to Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Shanghai.

Bisping and Rashad Evans another TUF veteran, spoke about fighting on the May 17th UFC London card for his retirement, but unfortunately these terms never came to agreement.

‘The Count’ had previously been suffering from an eye problem dating back to 2013. His orbital was broken against Vitor Befort and after the Gastelum fight in 2017 doctors diagnosed him with a vitreous detachment in his left eye, which puts him at risk from suffering another detached retina.

Bisping retires with an official MMA record of 30-9 where he has become the face of MMA in the UK, holds the most wins in UFC history with 20, the most fights in UFC history with 29 and second most total fight time in UFC history with 6 hour, 5 minutes and 13 seconds only to be beaten by Frankie Edgar.

Bisping typifies the underdog story because within his first 12 years of his career he always fell short of a UFC title shot. In his most recent UFC run he built up a five-fight win streak most notably defeated Anderson Silva, Luke Rockhold and Dan Henderson to finally get his hands on the UFC Middleweight title that has evaded him throughout his career.

Michael Bisping has wisely chosen his health over the love of the sport. He is officially retired from MMA competition but I’m sure we will see more of him of the announcement desk during the up and coming UFC events scheduled throughout the year.