Rich Franklin not ready to retire, eyes fight with Bisping

Six months removed from his KO loss at the hands of Cung Le, former UFC middleweight champion Rich “Ace” Franklin (29-7 MMA, 14-6 UFC) is finally talking about what’s next in his MMA career.

Franklin recently made an appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, where he quickly made it clear that he has no plans of retiring from the sport just yet:

“I haven’t been sitting on my end thinking about retirement,” Franklin told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour Monday. “I don’t want any of the fans out there to think, ‘Oh, Rich is just out there contemplating retiring.'”

“The loss to Cung was a big setback for me. Unexpected in my camp,” Franklin said. “I’m kind of sitting here thinking what’s my next move going to be. And I realized I’m 38 years old and my time is limited in the sport. I know that I’m not going to be fighting another 10 years. I have to start think about the things that I’m doing outside of MMA.”

During another interview, this time with the folks at MMA Weekly, Franklin admitted that he knows another title run is beyond his grasp at this point. The 2-2.5 years he thinks it would take him to reach contendership is more than he can continue to fight. However, he wants to compete 1 or 2 more times for the UFC and he has someone in mind for his next bout:

“I look at my Twitter and a lot of people talk about (Michael) Bisping. That would be an exciting fight and something the fans would want to see. I’m an exciting fighter, he’s an exciting fighter, and we both like to throw down.”

Being that Franklin is coming off a devestating loss to Le, and that Bisping just scored a win over Alan Belcher, that fight doesn’t exactly make sense. But, Rich is a “company man” and UFC officials may see fit to grant him this wish. Is this a fight you would like to see made? Let’s hear it Penn Nation!