Michael Bisping has mixed feelings about Vitor Belfort's UFC Hall of Fame induction
Michael Bisping has mixed feelings about Vitor Belfort joining the UFC Hall of Fame.
If there's anyone who would have a valid protest to Belfort having his name enshrined in the pioneer wing of the Hall during International Fight Week on June 28, it would be Bisping.
The former UFC middleweight champion, who is a member of the Hall himself, received a serious eye injury in his January 2013 loss to Belfort at UFC on FX 7. The repercussions of a kick ultimately led to Bisping completely losing his vision, and now he famously has a prosthetic eye.
Injuries are an inherent risk of combat sports, but what makes the situation with Bisping even worse, is that Belfort was competing while being granted a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), which essentially was a then-legal performance-enhancing drug that was outlawed and banned from the sport in February 2014.
Bisping understandably still has issue with Belfort for everything that happened. It makes the legacy of "The Phenom" highly complicated, but if Bisping can remove all emotion, he said Belfort belongs in the UFC Hall of Fame.
"When we were in Des Moines, Paul Felder had a little piece for the (video) package where we speak about the greatness of the people getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. They said, 'We won't ask you Mike, for obvious reasons.' I said, 'You know what? I don't care. I'll do it,'" Bisping told MMA Junkie. "When you look at it and remove all the emotions from it, the man was the UFC heavyweight champion of the world at 19. He then became the light heavyweight champion. He almost became the middleweight champion. He's the closest thing we've had to a three-weight champion.
"Was he a massive cheater? Of course. Did he take a lot of steroids? Of course. Were there a lot of other people doing that at the same time. Absolutely there was. I get it."
During his storied career, Belfort owned UFC gold, won the UFC 12 heavyweight tournament and racked up an all-time UFC record 13 finishes in the first round of his fights.
There are other athletes in the UFC Hall of Fame who have accomplished far less than Belfort, and had their own controversies as well. For that reason, Bisping can accept that Belfort, despite his faults, earned his place.
"I lost an eye because of this guy," Bisping said. "He can stick his Hall of Fame up his ass. But he does deserve it. You can't deny what he did inside the octagon. You just can't deny it. If that's not a Hall of Fame career, I don't know what is. Whether you like it or not, he deserves it."
To hear more from Bisping, check out his complete appearance on "The Bohnfire" podcast with MMA Junkie senior reporter Mike Bohn above.
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