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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Harry Davies

Former UFC champion Michael Bisping would fight Jake Paul despite having fake eye

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping is willing to come out of retirement to fight Jake Paul.

Bisping retired from MMA in 2018 after consecutive stoppage losses to Georges St-Pierre and Kelvin Gastelum.

The Brit suffered a detached retina after his 2013 loss to Vitor Belfort but continued to fight for several years despite suffering from vision loss.

Bisping has previously been linked to a fight with Paul, who is 5-0 as a professional boxer, and admitted that if the YouTube star was serious about it he would fight him.

He also joked the fight would need to take place on an Indian reservation as it wouldn't be sanctioned elsewhere because of his prosthetic eye.

"If he wants to I would," Bisping said of a fight with Paul on The MMA Hour. "Stick me on an Indian reservation... two rounds boom, out cold. Why wouldn't I believe that?

"He's not [an incredible boxer]. You're talking to 'The Count'. I think I could beat him, I don't know about two rounds."

Paul picked up three wins inside the ring last year, knocking out Ben Askren before twice defeating ex-UFC champion Tyron Woodley.

The 25-year-old has been linked to a rescheduled fight with Tommy Fury and a clash with former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr next.

Bisping, who was known for his sharp boxing during his UFC career, has previously insisted Paul is not on his level despite being a retired fighter.

“I can say this categorically I would end Jake Paul," he said on his YouTube channel. "It is not that I don’t respect him he is out there making money good for him.

"But he isn’t at the level of somebody like myself or others in the UFC. That is why he is picking off people at the end of their career or that are smaller than him that aren’t strikers at first.

Would Michael Bisping beat Jake Paul? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below

“I am curious to see who he will fight next but if he made me an offer and I could make it happen I would take it.”

Bisping revealed that Paul did make him a fight offer in 2020 but never sent through an official contract.

"He actually made an official offer and I took the bait and I started talking about it," Bisping admitted.

"What does that do? It just says to everybody, Jake Paul is looking for real fights' but there was never a contract that came through.

"There was an e-mail but there was never a contract - it was an email that came to my manager and I talked about it and then the dialogue stopped. I was appalled at Jake Paul's f***ing chess game... He played me."

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