There’s rarely a moment in any fighter’s career where they have a bigger captive audience than just after a UFC win. Hundreds of interviews, podcasts, and social media posts get attention, sure, but nothing quite compares to that two-minute window when the whole combat sports world is watching to see what somebody is saying.
That’s why it drives UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping crazy when he’s conducting those post-fight interviews and athletes fail to take advantage. Some just dish out a thousand thank yous while others end with the common phrase, “I’ll fight whoever the UFC puts in front of me,” but Bisping promises that’s the biggest mistake anybody could make.
“It’s not only just me, but Chael Sonnen or anyone with any experience says you have the world by the palm of your hands,” Bisping told MMA Fighting. “You’ve just won. Maybe you just got a crazy knockout, you’re having your interview — call out your next fight! Take charge of your career.
“Whenever they said, ‘Oh, I’ll take on anybody, whoever the UFC wants to give me,’ I think, ‘For crying out loud.’”
During his career, Bisping may have been the most called out fighter on the entire UFC roster, and that’s at least partially due to the exuberance he showed during his own post-fight interviews. He’s not always proud of what was said in those moments, but the former UFC middleweight champion acknowledges that he spoke from the heart as well as the head because he never lost sight of his future.
He laments that too many fighters fail to live up to that occasion these days, especially knowing the sport notoriously has a short attention span because there’s so much going on.
“If you’re a young fighter out there and you get that microphone, call out a bloody name,” Bisping said. “Don’t be stupid with it. Don’t call out the champion if you’re nowhere near. Be realistic in your expectations but always have something to say, always try to entertain the world, always try and make the most out of that moment. Because the reality is, it might be six months, you might get injured, it might be a year, and in this sport, it’s just a sad reality, you get forgotten about really quick. You get stepped over and overlooked really quick.
“You’re only as good as your last fight, and the problem is these days, a week after or at least a month after, there’s another pay-per-view. There’s other big fights. There’s more viral knockouts and the attention is taken off you and you’re forgotten about. You’re yesterday’s news. But if you call out the right person, they might just make that matchup and you might be on a pay-per-view in a couple of months’ time because you’ve generated that fan interest in the absolute initial phase. When you beat your [opponent], you called him out, the UFC make it, the fans are interested.”
Bisping never sat down and wrote out ideas about what he planned to say after his fights, but he knew it had to get people interested in seeing what he did next.
Calling out a specific opponent may not lead to the fight actually happening, but it at least gets some attention and perhaps gives the UFC ideas about future matchmaking.
While some fighters view callouts as a disrespectful part of the sport, Bisping disagrees because there’s many different ways to issue a challenge, and it doesn’t require anybody to go full Conor McGregor or Colby Covington to grab headlines.
“I always called out plenty of people,” Bisping said. “I always said some stupid, dumb controversial s*** more often than not, but you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to have a presence. That doesn’t mean sell yourself out, make a fool out of yourself, try and be something you’re not. Because people can smell a fraud. They can see a fake. They can see somebody trying to be something they’re not and it just comes across as corny and weak and just cringe. Like, ‘Oh God, that’s not you, you’re trying to be something that you’re not.’ But have a bloody name because that’s your job.
“All you have to do is fight somebody and guess what? The UFC will match you up with somebody. Would you rather not have a name? Would you rather not have a say in that? Would you rather not state that case live on TV in the moment after you just knocked somebody out? I think the answer to that for everybody is yes, so why not do that? It’s not even being disrespectful. You could say, ‘I love this guy, I’m the biggest fan of him and I want to test myself,’ or you can say, ‘F*** that guy, I can’t stand him, I want to knock him out, I cannot wait to get my hands on him.’ That gets the fans going.”
Bisping knows a lot of athletes complain about not getting booked for certain fights or being sidelined for long stretches of time. Calling out an opponent after a win doesn’t guarantee that changes, but Bisping believes it at least puts a bug in UFC’s ear about what comes next.
A generic post-fight interview that ends without any forward-looking statement will likely get forgotten as soon as the next bout on a card begins.
“You’ve got to call your shots,” Bisping said. “You’ve got to be the master of your own destiny. You’ve got to try and make these things happen. Because if you just sit there and say nothing, well No. 1, you might get forgotten about, but you certainly can’t complain when it doesn’t pan out the way you wanted it because you were never brave enough to put it out there to the world actually what you wanted to happen and where you wanted your career to go.
“Sure, your managers behind the scenes might say something, but when you’re on TV, that’s the time to try and get your fan base behind you and try and take control of it yourself.”
