• UFC 127

Rivera urges 'pompous' Bisping not to 'run away'

Michael Bisping reportedly wanted Jorge Rivera's trainer banned from the UFC 127 weigh-ins © Getty Images

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Jorge Rivera has taken one final dig at Michael Bisping, telling the Briton he will never be in the same league as the likes of Anderson Silva or BJ Penn.

Rivera has had plenty to say about Bisping in the lead-up to their UFC 127 collision, most notably that he does not believe the TUF 3 winner is anywhere near as talented as he thinks he is. Bisping labelled Rivera a 'relic' at Wednesday's press conference, insisting he was a far more complete mixed martial artist than El Conquistador.

The bad blood has been spiked by Rivera's home videos, which have relentlessly mocked Bisping, and the American insists the British middleweight is living off his own self-perpetuated reputation.

"The truth is there's nothing he's going to do to me that's going to shake me or rattle me. Nothing," Rivera told MMA Weekly radio. "He's not going to say anything that's going to shake me, and I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to fight him. Come the 27th, that's how I'm going to do it, I'm going to fight him. If he wants to knock me out because I'm talking or whatever, so be it, that's the business that I'm in.

"This is how I view the sport. The sport is a game where you show your heart and you lay it on the line and the fans are going to love you for doing that. That's why the fans love Anderson Silva, that's why they love GSP, that's why they love BJ Penn, and Matt Hughes, and all these other great champions. All these guys, they lay it on the line.

"And you've got this guy running around saying he wants to fight higher competition and he wants to fight a champion. Nobody wants to see a guy running around for five rounds, and not actively engaging in a fight and trying to finish a fight. The object of the game is to finish the fight. I think that's a point that he misses. When you run your mouth for so long that you don't have anything to back it up… it comes across as arrogance and pompous and you don't do anything.

"He doesn't commit to the punches. He's just looking to touch them and run away, touch them and run away. I'm not looking to do that. I'm looking to punch him and keep punching him till he goes down."

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