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MMA

14th Mar 2017

We finally know what happened during the tense stand-off between Michael Bisping and Eddie Bravo

Alcohol played a part

Darragh Murphy

They say that they never close to coming to blows but it sure seemed like they wanted to get their hands on one another.

In one of the more bizarre scenes in Las Vegas last week, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping got into a bizarre altercation with esteemed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner Eddie Bravo.

Tempers flared as the pair squared up to one another in an argument that Bisping admits he doesn’t remember all that clearly.

‘The Count’ was obviously more worked up than Bravo, who has since explained what went down.

Speaking to his close friend Joe Rogan on the most recent Fight Companion podcast, Bravo played down the aggressive nature of the interaction with Bisping, who was in town for a press conference to promote his upcoming title defence against UFC great Georges St-Pierre.

“Bisping is my friend,” Bravo explained. “People were like ‘were they going to fight?’ Not for one second did I think that a fight was going to break down.”

According to Bravo, the argument began when he attempted to compliment the Manchester-born middleweight but Bisping took it the wrong way.

“I said ‘he visually improves from fight to fight, and you can see it’, I’m sure he’s sick of hearing that. I was complimenting him, and I can see how he thought that implied he was subpar at one point,” Bravo said. “He was like ‘I take offence to that man! I was always a bad ass since the Ultimate Fighter show.’ I understand where he’s coming from.

“We were trying to talk about fighting GSP. We were arguing, and he was getting kinda insulted. ‘I’m insulted when people say that!’ I’m sorry! I get it. I was trying to compliment you, but I see how you — I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

It was clear for all to see that Bisping enjoyed his trip to Vegas as he showed up to the promotional press conference a little worse for wear, which was pointed out several times by GSP, and Bravo insisted that there was no bad blood left from the dispute.

“He didn’t even remember, and he blacked out. He didn’t even remember,” Bravo continued. “But we’re cool, he DM’d me on Twitter and said ‘dude, sorry about last night.’”