Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping fell victim to a Vitor Belfort head kick back in 2013 before Bisping won the belt. At the time, Belfort was destroying everyone in front of him, perhaps thanks to the then-unregulated testosterone replacement therapy he was using.
Whatever the reason, Bisping has always held a grudge against the Brazilian MMA legend, and admitted it was “satisfying” to see Lyoto Machida knock out Belfort with the same front head kick Anderson Silva used against “The Phenom” back at UFC 126.
While discussing his thoughts on the UFC 224 bout on his Believe You Me podcast, Bisping went into detail as to why he enjoyed seeing Belfort go down like that (MMA Fighting):
“It’s very satisfying to see him lose if I’m honest. I don’t care for the guy. I think he’s built a career off being a cheat. The amount of insane steroids that he’s done over his life, over his career, is evident to see. I mean you go back and look at him in his early career, the guy was insanely jacked. When we fought he was insanely jacked, and now you look at him and he looks like a f**king beat up old man, and he’s getting knocked out like so and he’s performing like so. When he was juiced out of his mind, [he was] just f**king tearing through everybody.”
Bisping fought Belfort in the main event on a UFC on FX card, with the Brazilian having just spinning kicked Luke Rockhold in the first round a fight before. Belfort’s use of TRT is well documented, and ultimately caused some controversy when reports emerged that the UFC allowed Belfort to fight Jon Jones despite extremely high testosterone levels.
Even though Machida called out Bisping following his emphatic win over Belfort, “The Count” expressed his gratitude and admiration for “The Dragon”:
“He has the hypocrisy to go out and talk about being a good person and this and that. The guy’s a cheat, the guy has no honor. I would have loved to have been the person to do that, but it’s kind of still enjoyable to see him get what he deserves because he’s gone out and done that to many people and caused injuries. He f**ked up my eyeball, he’s the one to blame for that, so yeah. God bless Machida. Job well done.”
Machida took on fellow Brazilian UFC legend and former light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort on the main card of UFC 224 in Brazil last weekend.
