UFC icon Michael Bisping is a well-respected fighter in the MMA world. The fighter has had an impressive career, and although he has much respect for his past opponents, he is still not on good terms with former opponent Vitor Belfort.
Earlier this month, the UFC announced that former light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort will become the latest member of the UFC Hall of Fame class. The UFC Hall of Fame is considered one of the crowning achievements of a long and storied MMA career, but while Belfort is deserving of this, Bisping hasn’t fully forgiven the fighter.
In 2013, Bisping fought against Vitor Belfort and lost following a head kick knockout. The fight wasn’t the only thing he lost, as he also suffered an injury that eventually led to the complete loss of sight in one of his eyes. It later came out that Belfort had been using Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) at the time, which enhanced his abilities. Bisping has never forgiven him and has labeled him the “biggest cheat” in combat sports history.
In a recent interview, Bisping gave his thoughts on the news that Vitor Belfort will be heading into the UFC Hall of Fame.
“When we were in, I think it was Des Moines, Iowa, Paul Felder had a little piece for the package where we speak about the greatness of the people getting inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Bisping told Mike Bohn. “They said, ‘We won’t ask you, Mike, for obvious reasons.’ I said, ‘You know what? I don’t care. I’ll do it.’ When you look at it and remove all the emotions from it, the man was the UFC heavyweight champion of the world at 19. He then became the light heavyweight champion. He almost became the middleweight champion. He’s the closest thing we’ve had to a three-weight champion.”
“Was he a massive cheater? Of course. Did he take a lot of steroids? Of course. Were there a lot of other people doing that at the same time? Absolutely there was. I get it.”
“I lost an eye because of this guy,” Bisping said. “He can stick his Hall of Fame up his ass. But he does deserve it. You can’t deny what he did inside the Octagon. You just can’t deny it. If that’s not a Hall of Fame career, I don’t know what is. Whether you like it or not, he deserves it.”
While Belfort was never a UFC heavyweight champion—as opposed to Bisping, who won the UFC middleweight championship—he did win the heavyweight tournament at UFC 12, knocking out Scott Ferrozzo in the finals.
Bisping might still have bad blood with Belfort, but there is no denying Belfort’s contributions to the MMA world.
