• UFC 127

Bisping's an 'embarrassment', claims Rivera camp

Michael Bisping dished out his own version of justice at UFC 127 © Getty Images

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Jorge Rivera's camp have labelled Michael Bisping a "bad person", telling the Briton he should be "embarrassed" of his behaviour both during and after UFC 127.

Bisping recently attempted to draw a line under events in Sydney, which saw him strike Rivera with an illegal knee and allegedly spit at the American's corner, when he apologised and asked Rivera to do the same. El Conquistador was not blameless in Bisping's eyes for the regrettable events that took place in February, with accusations levelled that Rivera aimed personal insults at the Briton's family.

Both Rivera and Nick Palmisciano, CEO of Ranger Up, completely deny taking digs at Bisping's girlfriend, insisting the Wolf's Lair fighter has "issues" to deal with.

"It was all garbage, you know? I would never do that. I was just looking at him like, 'You've gotta' be kidding me'," Rivera told Bleacher Report, regarding claims that he had used a koala bear reference to suggest Bisping's partner had a sexual disease.

Palmisciano continued: "The one thing that I've seen over and over again, and it p***es me off every time, is this completely fabricated concept that we were making fun of Michael Bisping's girlfriend with the koala concept within the video. First of all, anybody that knows anything about Jorge knows that he is a family guy. He holds family very, very personally, and would never go after somebody's family. It's just not in his DNA. It's not the way that we do business. It's absurd.

"Second, Michael Bisping is such an incredibly easy target that for us to even get to a point where we needed to try to make fun of his family to make fun of him, we would really have to suck at this. We're talking like, we'd have to be making fun of Bisping for like four years and then be like, 'Alright, I think we've finally gotten to the end here. Let's go after his family.' It's just an absurd notion.

"Then the last thing, and I want to make this 100 per cent clear. When we made a reference to koalas, all that we were saying is that we think he (Bisping) has sex with animals. Not that his girlfriend had a sexually transmitted disease. Just the bestiality. There's no situation at all where we attacked his family. No one can find it. But [Michael Bisping] said it enough that people that hadn't seen the videos or hadn't read anything just started repeating it.

"Jorge didn't do that. [Bisping] is just going out of his mind, angry, because he's getting disrespected again, in his mind. Then he starts making things up so he can justify why this is happening, why people are laughing about it. Because [he thinks], 'they have to like me because I'm Michael Bisping and I'm awesome'."

Bisping has now stated his intention to move on, targeting a fight with Chael Sonnen, but there can be no doubt that his next fight in front of the US public will draw a spectacular reaction. In Palmisciano's eyes, Bisping should feel embarrassed.

"Not only did [Bisping] do it (throw the illegal knee), but then he threw his arms up in the air like, 'Yeah, I showed him.' Just seems like a bad person. Then he exacerbates the problem with the spitting at the end. I mean, it's completely unnecessary, it's ridiculous and nobody did anything bad to the guy. They hyped a fight. No one was going out there, doing anything nefarious. It wasn't like we were digging up the guy's past and publishing it for the world to see. It's like, we're making fun of you.

"Were I him, I'd be embarrassed. But he isn't. He's proud. That is one of the many reasons why I have issues with the man. There's no discipline there. There's no effort to even have discipline. It's embarrassing. From my perspective, everything that he did in that fight was an embarrassment. It's hard to have respect for him."

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