Following his resounding victory at UFC 127, Michael Bisping got himself in hot water by spitting at the corner of Jorge Rivera. The British middleweight was vilified by most of the MMA media and fans. That's sent The Telegraph's MMA expert Gareth Davies into a tizzy.
Davies suggests the American media is out to get Bisping, saying there was no balance to the stories written when both Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt called him out.
First we had Chael Sonnen, hardly a Saint himself, allowed to attack the Manchester middleweight with impunity. Where was the balance here from the US mainstream media covering MMA? Sonnen wrote UFC matchmaker Joe Silva an open letter, asking for a fight with Bisping. Fair enough.��How did the�US MMA media respond ? They wrote it up ignoring any of Sonnen's�misdemeanours in the sport. Balance ? None of it. But don't let the facts get in the way of a witchhunt.
From atop of his high horse, 'Nate the Great' added that Bisping's actions are unbecoming of a martial artist and were unsportsmanlike. No argument there, the spitting was utterly wrong, but am I really the only one who sees the irony here ?
Am I the only member of the media who can recall this same Marquardt�bringing home his own illegal knee to a downed opponent just two years ago ?�It was against�Wilson Gouveia [CORRECTION: It was Thales Leites at UFC 85].� Am I also the only one to recall�Marquardt followed that foul up with an illegal strike to the back of the head later in the fight? I know. I was there watching it live. Didn't�Marquardt himself bring�the sport into disrepute ? by testing positive for steroids on his UFC debut…
Davies calls me out for Cagewriter's Marquardt story.
Frankly that's no big deal. Davies and I have differing opinions on what to write in story that's simply reporting one fighter's quote about another. I don't believe the story needed to analyze whether Marquardt had the right to rip another fighter.
GAD assumes there's some anti-Bisping agenda. Funny things is, I may have the softest stance in the entire MMA media with regards to Bisping's future.
During Iole's appearance on ESPNRadio1100 following the incident on Mar. 1, I argued that the Bisping knee wasn't intentional and the spitting is something happens in the heat of the moment. I outright scoffed at the possibility of the middleweight being fired, but if some of the British media and Bisping want to believe it's them against the world - good deal, it makes for a fun storyline for the future.
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