Love or hate him - and plenty of MMA fans can't stand Michael Bisping - you have to give him credit for being a well-rounded, smart fighter. After a rough night for the British fighters on the main card, Bisping pleased the hometown fans in London by scoring a unanimous decision victory, 30-27 on all cards, over Yoshihiro Akiyama in the main event at UFC 120 in London.
"Akiyama's a tough fighter but I truly believed in my training and my skills and my ability to win this fight," Bisping told UFC color analyst Joe Rogan.
Just seconds into the fight, Bisping felt Akiyama's power. Akiyama, a fighter of Korean descent born in Japan, packs some zip in his hands. He landed a right hand on the side of Bisping's head. The Brit's legs buckled and he had a little trouble regaining his balance for a few seconds.
"I was seeing double. That's for sure," Bisping said. "And I couldn't see out of (my left eye). I said 'oh [expletive] this isn't a good start.'"
Once the fight settled into a rythym it was Bisping who consistently landed a series of combinations while Akiyama only went for the knockout punch. "Sexyama" landed his share of good right hands throughout the fight but the judges favored Bisping's volume over Akiyama's hard shots.
Things got dicey in the final round when Akiyama (13-3, 1-2 UFC) took nasty low blow as Bisping (20-3, 10-3 UFC) tried an inside leg kick. With 3:30 left in the fight, Akiyama laid on the mat for over two minutes and at one point he looked a longshot to continue the fight.
When it re-started, Akiyama went for broke but he only had about 60 seconds left in his gas tank. He even tried one last flurry in the final 10 seconds of the fight but Bisping avoided eating a fight changing shot.
Akiyama has won only one of his three fights with the UFC. All the matches have been very similar. He's chosen to slug it out in each fight but because his conditioning isn't up to par, he wasn't been able to maintain the same pace for 15 minutes. Akiyama's a short, thick middleweight at 5-foot-10. Maybe he's carrying some excess weight. He has the game to be a player at welterweight but as long as he remains at middleweight he may just be a .500 fighter.
For Bisping, this is another baby step toward the top five in the UFC's middleweight division. He's suffered middleweight losses to Dan Henderson and Wanderlei Silva. He still holds out hope for a shot at the champ Anderson Silva but right now, at minimum, he's behind Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt in the 185-pound pecking order.
"I'm training my ass off. I'm hungry," said Bisping. "Regardless of what some people say on the Internet, they think I'm full of my own [expletive], I'm not! No one works harder than me. Hopefully, I'll get the call soon."
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