Michael Bisping reveals he almost faked an injury to pull out of Robert Whittaker fight

Michael Bisping confessed that he nearly faked an injury to withdraw from his scheduled fight with Robert Whittaker at UFC 193 back in November 2015. Not because he was afraid of 'The Reaper,' though.

Bisping revealed that he intended to injure himself out of fear that his secret would get exposed. The Englishman, at that point, has been secretly fighting with just one good eye since 2013. The only reason he hadn't been forced to retire, said Bisping, was because he successfully "cheated" all his pre-fight vision tests.

However, his scheduled showdown with Whittaker was to take place in Australia, meaning Bisping would have to go through another series of tests once he arrived in the country. During a live Q&A session with fans on his YouTube channel, 'The Count' recounted:

"So I thought I'd fake an injury and I was gonna fake [that there was] something wrong with my ribs, to be fair. I said, what I'll do is I'll have my pad-man to kick me in the ribs with shinpads on a thousand times. And that would cause a ton of bruising. And when they do the MRI, they'll see a lot of bruising and I can say, 'Look at that, I can't fight.' But funnily enough, the world works in weird ways because I ended up having surgery on my arm. I had lose bone spurs and I couldn't move my arm so I had to have surgery."

Listen to Michael Bisping's story below:

---

Robert Whittaker admits he was "happy not to have fought" Michael Bisping

Michael Bisping and Robert Whittaker never got to revisit their unfinished business. However, 'Bobby Knuckles' admitted that he was glad the circumstances played out exactly the way they did.

Reflecting on the situation, Whittaker admitted that although he campaigned for the Bisping fight, he's happy that it never came to pass. During a UFC 225 media conference call in 2018, the Australian said:

"In terms of fighting him, from one fighter to another, there’s a lot of respect in terms of wanting to fight each other. There would’ve been a lot of respect there and a lot of honor earned, but I’m happy not to have fought him, just due to the fact that I’ve always watched him and, if I’m going to be honest with myself, I’m a bit of a fan of his, to be honest."