Michael Bisping would ‘100 percent’ have trilogy fight with Luke Rockhold in Karate Combat
Michael Bisping says he would come out of retirement to cap off his trilogy with Luke Rockhold.
Rockhold recently knocked out Joe Schilling in the third round at Karate Combat 45, which Bisping was doing a livestream event for on his YouTube channel. A few days later, Bisping addressed some fans asking him about doing a third fight with Rockhold to figure out who the better man is, once and for all.
“Luke Rockhold, I was doing a live to [his fight], and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to do the trilogy,’” Bisping said on Believe You Me. “I’ll do Karate Combat against Luke Rockhold. I’ll do it.
“I’ll do it. I will have a trilogy with Luke Rockhold in Karate Combat. I would love to.”
In their first meeting, Rockhold stopped Bisping with a guillotine choke in just under six minutes at UFC Fight Night 55 in November 2014. They would run it back less than two years later when Rockhold defended the UFC middleweight title against Bisping — who stepped in on short notice as an injury replacement for Chris Weidman — in the main event of UFC 199.
After a fight week full of trash talk, Bisping delivered the performance of a lifetime, shocking Rockhold, and the MMA community as a massive underdog and captured the title via first-round TKO.
The personal rivalry between Bisping and Rockhold has certainly changed over the years, but the competitive rivalry still seems to be there for Bisping. As his co-host Anthony Smith continued to push for the idea of the fight coming to fruition, the now UFC color commentator doubled down on making it happen.
“This has gotten momentum a bit too quickly, let me just see my hip doctor first,” Bisping said. “I’m joking, [but] I’d do it. 100 percent, I would. ... “Yeah, well done to Luke [against Schilling]. Fair play, man, fair play.”