If you don’t know who Michael Bisping is, then you’ve most likely been living under a rock. Not only is he the first English fighter to compete in a UFC main event, but he’s the first English fighter to take the UFC middleweight championship belt. While Bisping has gained massive notoriety over the past ten years heading into his October 8 Pay-Per-View showdown against Dan Henderson, his story to the top is one of the most interesting in UFC history and one that bears repeating.
Bisping started his martial arts career at just eight years old, training in the style of jiu-jitsu, which eventually evolved into an MMA career before the term “mixed martial arts” was even coined. Yet after years of success as a young fighter, he abandoned that path to find work.
With fighting constantly on his mind, Bisping knew that the standard 9 to 5 was not for him, drawing him back into the fighting world as a decorated kickboxer. Yet again, this stretch was short lived as he returned to the working world to provide for his family. But his story does not end there.
