5 times a fighter blatantly cheated to win a fight in the UFC

#3. Michael Bisping – vs. Jorge Rivera at UFC 127, 2011

Michael Bisping has always loved to play the heel for the UFC fans, particularly in the USA, but this was arguably the fight that saw the fans’ hatred of him peak. Faced with journeyman Jorge Rivera at the second UFC show in Australia, Bisping came into the fight as angry as he’d ever been following a flurry of Youtube videos by Rivera that mercilessly taunted his country, his fighting style, his family and basically everything about him.

It was expected that the Brit would fight with a chip on his shoulder, and that proved to be true. After an early takedown from Bisping, Rivera scrambled to his knees, and evidently, the red mist descended over ‘The Count’ as he reared back and hit his opponent with a huge knee strike to the head – a move that’s illegal, and always has been illegal in the UFC. Referee Marc Goddard stopped the fight immediately and deducted a point from Bisping, but the damage had been done – Rivera was gutsy enough to continue but he was clearly concussed from the blow and succumbed to a second-round TKO.

If winning largely due to an illegal blow wasn’t bad enough, Bisping proceeded to spit at Rivera’s cornermen and then taunted him by yelling “Go home loser!” rather than the usual gracious hug or handshake. While the post-fight anger – and even the illegal move – was almost understandable given how badly Bisping had been antagonised, it certainly didn’t endear him to the fans and he remains a hugely polarising character to this day.