Michael Bisping mocks Luke Rockhold’s ‘excuses’ as he finally admits what happened in infamous sparring session

The rivalry between UFC middleweights, Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold will go down as one of the biggest in the sports history.

From when the two first met each other back in 2014, the hatred between them was palpable and it made for two classic fights.

Ahead of their first meeting at UFC Fight Night 55, Michael Bisping made an audacious claim that he had already gotten the better of Luke Rockhold during an infamous sparring session.

Photo by Matt King/Getty ImagesMichael Bisping and Luke Rockhold finally explain infamous sparring storyPrior to their first fight, a reporter caught wind that the two had shared the cage together already and asked the Brit how their training together went.

Initially responding respectfully, Bisping refused to talk about their sparring sessions but then changed his mind. “Let’s just say I’m the unofficial Strikeforce champion,” Bisping joked with the reporter.

Ahead of one of Bisping’s fights in the UFC, his head coach, Jason Parillo drafted in the help of Rockhold, not knowing that he was about to spark one of the biggest rivalries in the sport’s history.

The American got the better of ‘The Count’ in their first meeting but then two years later answering a late notice opportunity from the UFC, Bisping rematched Rockhold when he was the 185lb champion.

In one of the craziest moments in the sport, after years of chasing the title, Bisping finally hoisted the UFC belt after knocking Rockhold out in the first round of their UFC 199 fight.

Following that, the two continued their feud but never had a deciding trilogy fight. Since both fighters have left their UFC careers behind them, they have now put their bad blood aside and are finally respectful to one another.

HARDEST TRAINER: ‘Two times harder than Tito Ortiz’… Rampage Jackson names UFC legend who trains harder than any fighter he’s ever seenHowever, speaking recently on the Jaxxon Podcast, Bisping and Rockhold finally shed some light on the infamous sparring session.

“I sparred Bisping hungover too one time. I came in, I was traveling down here,” Rockhold began to explain.

“Oh, here we go with the excuses. ‘Oh I was drunk, oh I was hungover, I had nothing to eat, I’d been f****** all night’, what else you got? Motherf*****, don’t come to sparring then,” Bisping jokingly responded.

“I thought we were sparring with big gloves on and then everyone’s like ‘Oh we’re doing 4oz gloves’. This motherf***** puts me in a cage for three rounds and I’m like ‘Oh, s*** just got real’,” Rockhold said.

Michael Bisping explains how he used to pass eye examinationsFor his second fight against Rockhold, Bisping fought it with one eye, as he did for the majority of the fights towards the back end of his career.

That of course used to cause issues for the Brit when it came to pre-fight tests, as if the commission knew he only had one working eye, he wouldn’t have been cleared to fight.

With that, he and Parillo came up with a way for him to pass the tests with a little bit of guesswork.

“I just lied my ass off in every test, like I even had a little stupid code, like me and Parillo we would say, because I would pass tests somehow but even on-site, the commission at the day of the weigh-ins would want to check your vision.

“I was always terrified that they were gonna (realize)… Me and Parillo had a thing I’d say, ‘Right, well if he covers up the eye (and asks how many fingers he’s holding up), go (cough) for one finger, (yawn) for two or whatever, we did that a couple of times,” Bisping explained.

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