Perhaps the strangest moment in a strange fight came in the final second of the third round.
That's when, in the main event of Saturday's UFC Fight Night 84, Anderson Silva landed an unabated flying knee strike on Michael Bisping just as the horn sounded.
Bisping hit the canvas hard, and for a moment, it appeared Silva had grabbed a buzzer-beating knockout. However, referee Herb Dean did not stop the bout, despite Silva's celebrations.
Perhaps even stranger, though, was the series of events that led to the knee strike. Bisping lost his mouthpiece during an exchange and motioned to Dean to pause the action. Dean did not do so, and Silva swarmed in to attack a distracted Bisping.
Can we go back to the end of round 3?! #WhatHadHappenedWas https://t.co/VqquhAt4Gn
— UFC (@ufc) February 27, 2016
As most fight fans now know, Bisping rallied and held on, withstanding that vicious knee and other subsequent punishment over the final two rounds to take a unanimous-decision victory.
In the post-fight news conference, Bisping said he, not Dean or Silva, was to blame for the mouthpiece confusion.
“I was trying to say, 'Herb (Dean)'—that’s my fault,” Bisping said, according to Steven Marrocco and John Morgan of MMA Junkie. “I’m too experienced to make those mistakes, and Anderson capitalized and well done for that guy."
Though it was not a classic bout, the back-and-forth, up-and-down contest netted $50,000 Fight of the Night bonuses for the 37-year-old Bisping and the 40-year-old Silva.
The punishment Bisping took from the knee late in the third round and over the fourth and fifth stanzas left his face a bloody mess. Stitches were evident on Bisping's face at the post-fight news conference as he acknowledged that the knee strike nearly put him away for good.
“When the round stopped, I wasn’t sure what had happened. I was like, ‘Please don’t tell me this is over. I’m fine,’" Bisping said. "Of course, when you’ve just taken a couple of knees and elbows, your faculties aren’t exactly the sharpest at that moment in time. But fortunately, I got the job done."
