Michael Bisping rates Israel Adesanya’s chances against ‘beatable’ Jon Jones

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping is very impressed with the division’s current champ Israel Adesanya — both in and out of the cage.

Bisping heaped praise on Adesanya on a recent episode of Submission Radio. Not even Adesanya’s recent win over Yoel Romero — an undeniable stinker — could sour the former champ’s opinion.

“Izzy’s outstanding,” Bisping began. “He’s great, undefeated, which is very marketable. He looks good, he talks good, he fights good. The guy’s a superstar. He’s got all the qualities that the UFC are looking for in a superstar, and he fights great.

“Okay, the last fight against Yoel, nobody wants to re-watch that one again, but that’s the way it goes,” Bisping continued. “But listen, you can’t deny it was a shitty fight. Doesn’t mean he’s a shit fighter, cause he’s not a shit fighter, he’s outstanding, he’s the world champion for a reason. But, you know, now and again that’s just stylistically sometimes happens. Yoel’s a serious knockout artist, he has a lot of power and obviously has the wrestling pedigree. So, you’ve got to be careful. And it takes two to tango. So, they were both as bad as each other. It was a shitty fight, it is what it is. He got the decision, forget about that, that’s in the past, that’s all history. But no, he’s outstanding, he’s gonna have a bright future. He’s still young.”

At this point, Adesanya is expected to defend his title against Paulo Costa next, but he’s also been jawing back and forth with UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones recently. Bisping seems to be a fan of the pair’s trash talk.

“I like what he’s doing with Jon Jones,” Bisping said. “I don’t know if that fight will ever happen. It probably won’t. Not anytime soon. I think Jon’s talking about going up to heavyweight, so obviously that would put a barrier between them. But I like it. I certainly liked seeing Israel talk shit about Jon Jones. It is funny. I just sit there in the morning eating my cornflakes and get a little chuckle out of it. So, yeah, no, he’s great, he’s great. I’m a big fan.”

While Jones is widely regarded as the greatest fighter ever, Michael Bisping likes Adesanya’s chances in this prospective matchup. He seems to view it as a winnable bout for the middleweight king.

“Listen, on the feet they’d match up pretty well,” Bisping said, delving into the matchup itself. “I can’t see why Israel wouldn’t have at least an equal footing or potentially an advantage. Jones isn’t… I mean, we saw in his last few fights he’s not invincible, he’s not superhuman, he is beatable. Everybody’s beatable, trust me. And Jon, the longer he does it, the longer he goes, it’s kind of a game of odds. At some point someone’s going to beat him, and it seems to be happening more and more. I mean, the fight against Dominick Reyes — and I’m not trying to dump on Jon Jones — I feel that Reyes won that fight. The one before, Thiago Santos, that was a close fight, and Thiago Santos had a bloody blown ACL from round one. The fight before that, Anthony Smith.

“Jon isn’t unbeatable, and Adesanya is also undefeated. They’re both pretty undefeated in my eyes. It’s a great fight. I’d love to see it one day, but I’m not sure I would ever see Israel at heavyweight. That’s why i kind of laughed there, cause he’s certainly very tall, but he’s a light middleweight at the end of the day. So, at heavyweight, he’s gonna have a big disadvantage there.”

What do you think of these comments from Michael Bisping?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 4/16/2020.