Morning Report: Michael Bisping offers to squash beef with Jorge Masvidal at UFC London: ‘Can we just end this bullsh*t?’

MMAfighting.com

In 2017, Jorge Masvidal started an unexpected beef with Michael Bisping when the two ran into each other at the fighter hotel in New York City ahead of UFC 217. They got into a second altercation just a day later that same week, and since then, the two have had beef with one another, even getting into another altercation at UFC Shanghai. But as Masvidal gets ready to headline UFC London this weekend where Bisping will be on site, the former UFC middleweight champion is prepared to let bygones be bygones.

“I hope I see him in London,” Bisping said of Masvidal on his Believe You Me podcast. “I hope I see him in London so I can just walk over and say, ‘Hey, listen, can we just end this bullsh*t?’ Because as I’ve said, I don’t know the guy! I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me.”

Masvidal’s beef with Bisping stems from Bisping tearing up the Cuban national flag while sitting cageside for Yoel Romero’s interim title fight with Robert Whittaker at UFC 213. Masvidal, whose father is Cuban, took offense to the gesture and so the feud has simmered ever since. But though Bisping has gone on to say some harsh things about Masvidal, “The Count” says he never really had any issue with “Gamebred” and assuming Masvidal doesn’t try to attack him again, he thinks the beef can be squashed.

“I’m not against Masvidal anymore,” Bisping said. “I’ve got no issue with him. I never had.

“Let’s see how he behaves in London. Now that I’m with ESPN and not Fox, when we used to travel to the arenas for Fox, Fox always put us up in a separate hotel – a very, very nice, five-star bougie hotel I might add. Now we’re in UFC hotel, so we’re surrounded by all the fighters and stuff like that. So no doubt I’ll be seeing him around fight week. So let’s see how all that goes. If there’s another interaction, if he’s trying to start a fight with me in the lobby like he did in New York, and in Shanghai, and in London. [But] I think that ship has sailed.”

It may or it may not have. For his part, Masvidal has made statements as recently as January regarding his issues with Bisping, saying that he still disliked Bisping and would “fix it” with Bisping either inside the cage or outside of it.

I suppose this weekend we’ll get to see which one it is.