How a title defense against the man who memed him could reshape Bisping's entire legacy

Imagine, if you can, that you’re Michael Bisping.

Say you’re the UFC middleweight champion, a title you won after stepping in as a short-notice replacement and winning a fight that few people thought you’d see the end of in an upright position. Say you now find yourself making your first title defense against Dan Henderson, the man who seven years ago turned you into an instant meme right before airlifting himself onto your face while you slept peacefully on the mat.

Say, just for added pressure, you’re making this title defense in your home country, and all your local fans are setting their alarms for the middle of the night just to see you.

Given all that, how are you not supposed to feel like you’re entering a fight in which the stakes are heart attack-inducingly high? How are you not supposed to feel like your whole legacy may depend on what happens on one early morning in Manchester at UFC 204?

Part of it has to do with the way Bisping (29-7 MMA, 19-7 UFC) is viewed, somewhat unfairly, by many MMA fans. You look at his career stats now, and you have to admit they’re kind of amazing. He is the winningest fighter in the history of the UFC’s middleweight division – the same weight class that Anderson Silva dominated for so many years. He’s one victory away from being the winningest fighter ever in the UFC.

If you heard a stat like that about Georges St-Pierre or Jon Jones, you’d be inclined to believe it without feeling the slightest need to fact-check it for yourself.

But Bisping? The same guy who, for years, seemed like he was glued to one spot in the middle of the rankings? If I’d asked you a week ago who the all-time UFC leader in significant strikes landed was, what are the odds you’d have said his name?

For a long time Bisping has been the fighter who, largely for personality-related reasons, didn’t get the credit he deserved from fans. A guy like him – one who’s been known to bend a rule or two and has never met an opponent he couldn’t turn into a bitter rival simply via conference call – kind of forces you to choose a side.

But now he doesn’t need us to give him his due. Now he’s got the UFC middleweight title, which itself forces a kind of begrudging respect. The trick, however, is holding onto the damn thing.

It gets trickier still against Henderson (32-14 MMA, 9-8 UFC). This is the fight Bisping asked for, eschewing more deserving (and, it must be said, more threatening) contenders all in the name of settling a score. He argued that, with Henderson about to age out of the game at long last, he was running out of time to get his revenge.

There was a certain inescapable logic to it. Plus, blood feuds sell, so you know the UFC was down.

After all that, you really can’t afford to lose this if you’re Bisping. Not that he’d want to drop his title to anyone on the roster, but Henderson? The guy who still uses as his personal brand logo the silhouette of himself giving you the old unnecessary attitude-adjuster at the end of your most famous humiliation? You know Bisping would probably rather lose a toe than lose this rematch.

Winning it, though, would be pretty sweet. It would give Bisping his second consecutive rematch revenge victory. It would also give him that elusive first UFC title defense, the one that makes you seem like a real champ and not just some temporary belt custodian. It might even twist the narrative of his whole career, from the guy who was stuck as a perennial contender to the man who almost instantly became champion once the drug testing got serious.

If you were making a by-the-book sports movie, this is the scene you’d end on. After the Henderson rematch, it’s freeze frame and roll the credits. It’s just that, with the outcome still to be decided, it’s tough to be sure yet whether this film is an uplifting redemption tale or a long, dark comedy.

And for more on UFC 204, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.