Michael Bisping fires back at those who think Dan Henderson won

Earlier this month at UFC 204, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping, and MMA legend Dan Henderson stepped into the Octagon in a highly anticipated rematch, this time for Bisping’s UFC middleweight championship.

The fight was an extremely spectacular one, with Henderson showing off the power he possesses in his right hand even at 46 years old as he dropped Bisping in both the first and second rounds. Ultimately however, Bisping was able to weather an early storm from Henderson as he continued to outwork the MMA legend throughout the course of the remaining 3 rounds, out-striking Henderson as he poured out an impressive volume of strikes.

Ultimately, the judges scored the fight a unanimous decision win for Bisping, who made his first successful title defense with the win.

This week however, Henderson, who retired following the fight, revealed that after watching the footage of the fight, is convinced that he won, and is “pretty pissed” about the situation.

In an editorial piece for Champions.Co, Bisping fired back at his critics:

“Anybody that thinks Dan won that fight…quite frankly, you guys are crazy. Of course, Dan is going to say that because it was in England, the judges were partial to me. They were the same judges that score many, many UFC events. It’s not like they rounded up three blokes from Manchester just for this fight. There’s a thing called an airplane, and those judges were flown out to score that bout.

Dan can try to come up with whatever excuses he wants to discredit my win, the fact of the matter is, he should be gracious in defeat. I won, fair and square. He put on a great performance, I won’t deny it. Well done to you, Dan, but guess what? It just wasn’t enough. They got it right on the #scorecard.”

While many scored the first round in Henderson’s favor, Bisping explained why the round should have still been 10-9:

“He won that first round 10-9, because for it to be a 10-8, you’ve got to beat somebody from pillar to post for most or all of the round. He had 45 seconds of good action.”