UFC: Michael Bisping's 5 Biggest Controversies

5. Feuding With Tim Kennedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1a8ifYy7M Tim Kennedy is something of a character in MMA. He's got a sense of humour about him that included dressing up in women's clothes while looking for an opponent to fight, implying that anyone not wanting to fight him was running from a sissy. He's very vocal on twitter, and very vocal in the press. He was also very vocal about pursuing a fight with Michael Bisping earlier this year after Bisping was cleared to return to fighting following eye surgery. "Hey @bisping you should keep your one good eye on me and get the other one healthy. ;-)" It's something that many fighters need to do - promote themselves and call guys out to keep their name relevant. Kennedy's call out of Bisping was more humorous than offensive - but the Count took offense nonetheless. His response: "Don€™t start acting hard because you ko€™d some random Brazilian. News flash, NO ONE GIVES A S---. If u want it. April, let€™s go. Well it's simple. Call the UFC and say u wanna fight me in April. Put your money where your mouth is big shot." With Kennedy's next reply being a little more biting (promising not to eye poke Bisping or spit on him, actions the brash Brit has been accused of in the past), a full out war erupted between the two. Kennedy managed to actually produce videos with Ranger Up where "Bisping" (played by another fighter) is seen training, but the spoof videos include reference to the eye pokes and spitting. This infuriated Bisping even more, though he tried to downplay it. In an interview with FOX Sports, he stated "To be honest, it's just a whole waste of time on their behalf. I don't know what they hope to achieve from (it). They're trying to make fun of me, I get that, but it was just an epic fail. An epic fail of all proportions. I didn't think it was funny, I think it was just a big fat waste of their time. The fact that Ranger Up and Tim Kennedy, I think they're one and the same, I don't know that to be true, but I assume they're one and the same -- they're doing just what Jorge Rivera did. Good for you, milk it. Milk it to the fullest potential because it's over again for another few years until you have some other f--king d--khead that might want to fight me again." He then went on to say that "This is Tim Kennedy's big shot. He's fighting me, they'll be more people watching it so he's trying to get as much as he can out of it, He'll get a few more Twitter followers and then everybody will forget who Tim Kennedy is." Despite trying to play it cool with FOX Sports, however, he would continue to engage in Twitter warfare with Kennedy, being unable (or unwilling) to take the high road. And in the end, he would be proven wrong - Kennedy would dominate him in the ring, out-wrestling him in a bout that even Bisping has acknowledged was a legit loss on his record.
Contributor
Contributor

Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.