Michael Bisping's 5 most memorable UFC fights

#3 vs. Anderson Silva – UFC Fight Night 84 - 02/27/16

Bisping's war with Anderson Silva was an instant classic

By 2016, Bisping had racked up over 20 UFC fights in his career and although he’d picked up plenty of big wins – Chris Leben, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Brian Stann and Thales Leites to name a few – he’d always fallen at the final hurdle before gaining a title shot. And for the majority of that time period, the man with the title he’d been chasing was the legendary Anderson Silva. Silva though had fallen from his perch in 2013 and by 2016, it seemed he was in his twilight years too.

And so the UFC finally put together the Bisping/Silva fight – albeit with no title on the line – and hoped for a classic. To say the two men delivered would be an absolute understatement. It turned into a five-round war with both men getting their licks, and in a back-and-forth battle, somehow Bisping came away with his hand raised.

The first two rounds went firmly in the favour of the Brit, as his more straightforward style allowed him to land the more telling blows on Silva, who appeared to be trying to get into Bisping’s head with his clowning, taunting style. A late second-round knockdown for Bisping proved he meant business though, and in the third round, ‘The Spider’ decided to turn the heat up on the UK favourite.

Bisping continued to act as the aggressor but for Silva, the clowning was largely over, as he began to land more accurately than before. With seconds remaining in the round, the former champion allowed Bisping to hit him cleanly before returning fire, knocking out ‘The Count’s mouthpiece. Bisping then made a rare error – pointing this out to referee Herb Dean – and Silva took full advantage, destroying him with a flying knee.

It looked as if the fight was over, as Silva began to celebrate on the cage, but it turned out that Bisping – despite only being semi-conscious – had been saved by the buzzer. And surprisingly, Silva didn’t go for the kill in the fourth round – unsurprisingly allowing the lion-hearted Bisping to will himself back into the fight and somehow take the round.

But the fifth and final round still had a sting in the tail. Despite a good start for Bisping, he ended up on the verge of being finished again, as Silva hit him with a trademark front kick to the jaw, putting him on rubber legs. Again Bisping’s heart kept him in the fight though, and when it came to the judges’ decision, he’d done enough to win the first, second and fourth rounds – taking a remarkable victory, the biggest of his career at the time, in a truly hellacious war.