• UFC 127

Diabate 'not surprised' by 'explosive' Bisping

Cyrille Diabate once beat Michael Bisping in a kickboxing competition © Getty Images

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Cyrille Diabate, who dominated Steve Cantwell at UFC Live, has revealed he "was not surprised" that Michael Bisping cast the sport of MMA in a bad light at UFC 127.

Diabate has history with Bisping, having coached on the TUF 9 reality series headed up by Bisping and Dan Henderson. The French light-heavyweight also exchanged heated words with the Briton after he beat him in a kickboxing competition.

Bisping is still awaiting punishment for his actions at UFC 127, when he delivered an illegal knee to the head of Jorge Rivera and then allegedly spat at Rivera's coach Matt Phinney. Diabate claims the scandal was always waiting to happen with the Wolf's Lair fighter.

"I'm not surprised at all. I've had problems with Bisping a few times," Diabate told Fighters Only. "He's a character. He's very explosive. He tends to act and think after. His actions weren't a surprise to me as he's the type of guy that does that s*** and then regrets it or tries to apologies after.

"But his actions have gone by already and he's hurt people's feelings and he's shown the public the bad side of the sport. Not even of the sport, but of fighters themselves. We don't need that kind of publicity. There are so many people bad mouthing MMA as it is that we don't need those kinds of actions.

"We fought a couple of years back in a kickboxing match. After I won on points he went on the internet saying that he knocked me down and that he won that fight so we had a bit of an argument on the internet and then we saw each other a couple of times - let's just say we don't like each other."

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