Dominick Cruz finally gives his side of infamous Michael Bisping bar altercation

'Listen you little shit! I'm not going to take you talking to me like that anymore.'

Ben Kiely

In 2017, Michael Bisping recounted a very humorous anecdote involving himself and Dominick Cruz.

Michael Bisping and Dominick Cruz worked as analysts for Fox, they were both UFC champions and they both happen to be two of the finest shit talkers the sport has ever seen. So when they were put together behind a desk, they were bound to clash.

“Me and Dominick went for a drink after Fox Sports one night. You know, Dominick is good at getting under your skin and we were having a little altercation. He said, ‘You want to punch me right now. Don’t you, Bisping? You want to punch me.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I kind of do!'”

“He says, ‘Go on. Fucking punch me. Punch me. I guarantee by the time you try to throw one punch, I will have hit you in the face 10 times and you won’t be there to hit me back.’ And I’m like, ‘Listen you little shit, we’re in a bar. Calm down. Calm down.’ He’s like, ‘No. Let’s go. Let’s go.’ But that’s what he believes. He’s so confident.”

Joe Rogan nearly pissed himself https://t.co/c46a63pgd9

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 24, 2018

The other side of the story

It’s all well and good hearing Bisping’s take on the incident, but there was another raconteur involved. Fortunately, Cruz appeared on Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast to tell his side of the story. Of course, it’s massively entertaining.

“First me and Bisping work all day on the desk. We were already getting at each other all day. Just kind of throwing low blows all day long on TV. We all know Bisping can dish it out but he has a hard time taking it. So, after a while – pick, pick, pick, pick, pick – we get to the bar, he has a couple of Champagnes. He’s like, ‘Oh ok, I’ll have a couple of these Champagnes. I’ll be alright.’ A couple of his friends fly in from Manchester, including his brother, and when they get there, Michael’s happy now. Now he’s really good.”

“So a couple more Champagnes went down and we’re drinking, having fun, chilling, getting to this area where we’re all trying to figure out what we’re going to do and Michael looks at me and I said something probably a little below the belt.”

“He gets a little upset, grabs me by shirt, crinkles it and goes, ‘Listen you little shit! I’m not going to take you talking to me like that anymore.'”

At this point, Cruz said the wrong thing. He knew it at the time, too. Fortunately, Jay Glazier of Fox intervened to simmer the situation down. However, Bisping was already fuming.

“While he’s looking at me, I kind of look behind me and I’m like, ‘Are you talking to me or the guy behind me?’ And then he snaps. All of a sudden Jay Glazier comes in. He goes, ‘Hey!’ Jay Glazier separates us, looking back and forth with his arms out, all fat and out of shape, breathing hard out of his nose. ‘Listen guys, you can’t do this in here. This is my establishment. You can’t do this.'”

“Then, all of a sudden, Michael Bisping’s brother comes out of nowhere and he goes, ‘Bisping, Bisping. Stop it! You’re going to get us in trouble. And Bisping just WAAW! Sleeps his brother in the middle of the club, just lays him out! I go, ‘Oh my God, that could have been me! Thank God I talked a little bit of sense to him because at first when he was talking to me, I was like, ‘Go ahead, Bisping. If you want to do this, we can do this right fucking now.’ I was like, ‘We can do this, but I promise you, you’re going to swing, you’re going to miss, we’re in a small place, you can’t see very well, I’m going to hit you 10 times before you even hit me once.'”

"You can kiss my ass" https://t.co/rGX5klZynV

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 30, 2018

A bone of contention

Bisping denied that his brother got hit in the face. According to the former UFC middleweight champion, he ‘got a little slap because he caused a massive fucking scene.’ That being said, Cruz is adamant that he put his brother ‘on his back’.

“He kind of looks at me and he thinks about like, ‘I’ll probably kill Dominick, but at the same time, he might have a point, he could possibly do what he just said.’ But that’s when his brother stepped in and he just slept his brother rather than taking the smart direction. He gets thrown out of the club, I stay there and Bisping goes and rips it somewhere else, has a blast living his good life. That’s the end of that story.”

When asked if he believes he could actually beat up a man who used to fight five weight classes above him, Cruz responded emphatically.