Champ Michael Bisping rules out UFC 206 due to orbital injury, responds to 'Jacare' title shot request

Michael Bisping won’t be fighting at UFC 206 next month. Not against Georges St-Pierre. Not against Nick Diaz. And not against Ronaldo Souza.

This past month, the UFC middleweight champion said he verbally agreed to fight ex-welterweight titleholder St-Pierre (25-2 MMA, 19-2 UFC) at the Dec. 10 event in Toronto. When that didn’t materialize, Bisping (30-7 MMA, 20-7 UFC) called out Nick Diaz for a title showdown. That didn’t come to fruition, either.

Shortly after, a truly realistic opponent surfaced in Souza (23-4 MMA, 6-1 UFC) when Luke Rockhold pulled out of a scheduled UFC Fight Night 101 headliner due to injury. “Jacare” and his team then called for a future matchup with the champion, but Bisping didn’t immediately reply.

He did tonight, though. “The Count” hosted “UFC Tonight” on FS1 and addressed the situation, fully ruling himself out of fighting anytime soon due to a pair of injuries.

“I’ve never ducked anybody in my life,” Bisping said. “Now I know what everybody at home is going to say. ‘Didn’t you call out ‘GSP’ a couple of weeks ago?’ Yes I did, but really, think about this: That was a massive payday. roughly $3-4 million dollars I would have earned for that fight. Against ‘Jacare,’ I’m going to get around about a quarter.

“As you all know, I fought Dan Henderson very recently. I have a fractured orbital. I’m getting PRP (platelet rich plasma) injections. I don’t know what they are, but it sounds fancy. I’m getting them on Friday in my leg. I’m limping around the place, I’ve got a fractured orbital.”

Bisping, No. 1 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA middleweight rankings, made it clear what won’t be next for him. He did mention what could be, though, and Souza is certainly in the equation, he said.

But first, Bisping wants to see what happens in the key UFC 205 bout between No. 3-ranked Chris Weidman (13-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) and No. 4-ranked Yoel Romero (11-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC). After that, he said he would take any fight the UFC deems most fitting.

“Yoel and Weidman, they are fighting, (and) whoever wins that, either that guy or ‘Jacare’ will be my next fight make no mistake,” Bisping said. “But I’m not doing it in a few weeks. My name isn’t ‘Short Camp Sally,’ it’s Michael ‘The Count’ Bisping, UFC middleweight champion of the world. And you will get it ‘Jacare,’ and you will get it Yoel, Weidman, Rockhold, all of you. Make no mistake.”

For more on the UFC schedule, including UFC 206,check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.