Morning Report: Michael Bisping says it’s ‘satisfying’ for him to see Lyoto Machida knock out Vitor Belfort

On Saturday night at UFC 224, MMA legend Vitor Belfort stepped out of the Octagon for the final time. After suffering a brutal front-kick knockout at the feet of Lyoto Machida, Belfort took off his gloves and left them in the center of the cage, signifying his retirement from MMA. And while most fans marvel at Belfort’s incredible longevity in the sport – Belfort made his first appearance at UFC 12 back in 1996! – others are just happy to see him go, chief among them, former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping.

On the most recent edition of his Believe You Me podcast, Bisping discussed the final fight of Belfort’s career, saying it was “very satisfying” to see the former light heavyweight champion go out flat out on his back.

“It’s very satisfying to see him lose if I’m honest,” Bisping said. “I don’t care for the guy. I think he’s built a career off being a cheat. The amount of insane steroids that he’s done over his life, over his career, is evident to see. I mean you go back and look at him in his early career, the guy was insanely jacked. When we fought he was insanely jacked, and now you look at him and he looks like a f**king beat up old man, and he’s getting knocked out like so and he’s performing like so. When he was juiced out of his mind, [he was] just f**king tearing through everybody.”

Bisping and Belfort fought at UFC on FX 7. Belfort knocked Bisping out with a headkick but Bisping maintains that Belfort came into the fight with an unfair advantage since Belfort was on testosterone replacement therapy. For his part, Belfort was on TRT but had a medical exemption for the treatment which was perfectly legal under the rules at that time. Regardless, the headkick Belfort landed ended up detaching Bisping’s retina and causing permanent damage to that eye. It’s something Bisping has never forgiven Belfort for and at least plays some part in why Bisping was happy to see Belfort “get what he deserved.”

“He has the hypocrisy to go out and talk about being a good person and this and that,” Bisping said. “The guy’s a cheat, the guy has no honor. I would have loved to have been the person to do that, but it’s kind of still enjoyable to see him get what he deserves because he’s gone out and done that to many people and caused injuries. He f**ked up my eyeball, he’s the one to blame for that, so yeah. God bless Machida. Job well done.”

Bisping has not fought since his knockout loss to Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Shanghai and does not appear likely to compete again, saying that he is essentially retired.