Michael Bisping's two stoppage losses in three weeks leave UFC with one big question

For the second time in three weeks, Michael Bisping made the long, lonely walk to the octagon for a UFC main event. Also for the second time in three weeks, he got hit with a hard left hand that took his legs out from under him, with defeat following close behind.

The second one was a lot harder to watch than the first, but that’s at least in part because the memory of the first one was still so fresh.

We all saw Bisping (30-9 MMA, 20-9 UFC) get dropped by Georges St-Pierre’s left hand at UFC 217 in New York City. Then those of us who either stayed up late or woke up early saw him get wiped out by Kelvin Gastelum’s (14-3 MMA, 9-3 UFC) left at UFC Fight Night 122 in Shanghai, and it was hard not to feel like the two events were in some way connected.

For starters, there’s the question of how he got there. Bisping received a 30-day medical suspension from the New York State Athletic Commission after his loss at UFC 217 earlier this month.

But as officials from both the UFC and the New York commission told MMAjunkie, at some point (and neither provided an exact date) that suspension was decreased from 30 days to seven.

And that’s how, just 21 days after losing the UFC middleweight title, Bisping was free and clear to fight again at an event where the UFC essentially acted as its own regulator.

Was it safe? Well, no, but nothing about getting hit in the head over and over again is ever safe. An extra nine days’ rest may not have made much difference to Bisping’s long-term brain health, and anyway these post-fight medical suspensions are usually somewhat arbitrary.

According to Dr. John Stiller, a neurologist who serves as the chief medical officer for the Maryland State Athletic Commission, “there is no test (or) observations that can definitively determine (whether or not) short and long-term risks are increased in any given athlete by returning to further head traumas earlier than dictated by the suspension.”

In any words, while doctors know it’s probably not great to group your brain traumas too close together, there’s no way to determine in advance when it’s bound to be especially bad. And hey, Bisping said he felt fine, so why not, right?

At the same time, it’s precisely this type of scenario that UFC President Dana White once prided himself on avoiding. Back in 2013, White explained that MMA was safer than pro football in large part because of the time between contests.

“First of all, if you get a concussion, if you get knocked out or you get hurt whatsoever in the UFC, three months suspension,” White said. “You are on suspension for three months, and you cannot come back until you are cleared by a doctor. You can’t have any contact whatsoever. In the NFL, you’re not going to lose Tom Brady for three months, man. You lose Tom Brady for three months, and your whole season is wiped out.”

Of course, you lose Anderson Silva to a drug test and can’t tap Bisping to fill in, maybe your whole fight night is wiped out just as easily.

But if you think any of it worries Bisping, think again. He still wants to fight one more time early next year. His toughness is still just as intact as his competitive fire, and as he so eloquently put it just minutes after being hauled up from the canvas, “Kelvin is a great guy, but it’s going to take a bigger pile of (expletive) than him to get rid of me.”

Which, of course, forces us to ask what it will take. Another knockout? Another win? Is Bisping the kind of guy who can tell himself just one more and really mean it?

After the November he’s had, you can’t help but hope so. It gets harder and harder to watch when the next blow lands while the last still echoes in our collective memory. And while we can’t necessarily say when it’s too much, we ought to be able to say when it’s enough.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 122, check out the UFC Events section of the site.