Michael Bisping was impressed by Sean O'Malley's gritty performance despite being dragged into deep waters by Petr Yan at UFC 280: "You have to have the ability to get your f***ing a** kicked"

Sean O'Malley pulled off the biggest upset of the night at UFC 280 against the heavily favored Petr Yan. After a Fight of the Night bantamweight bout, the two fighters went to the judges' scorecards, with a split decision victory going O'Malley's way.

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping weighed in on Sean O'Malley's performance against the No.1-ranked bantamweight contender. In a Q&A live stream on YouTube, he said:

"Sean, Mr. O'Malley, stepped up to the plate. Got the job done. I thought he looked well, he looked good. Went from No.11 to fight the No.1-ranked guy. You know, that takes balls. I was impressed with O'Malley because we got to see him fight through adversity. And we haven't seen that before. Sean's gone out there and kinda dominated people with his striking acumen and got a finish. Maybe sometimes later in the round, sometimes earlier. But we haven't seen him in an absolute slug-fest, back-and-forth battle. And that's what we saw."

Bisping continued:

"And I love to see that. Because if a guy is gonna go on and become a champion, he needs to have that ability. You have to have the ability to get your f*****g a** kicked sometimes. And then be able to, like, shrug it off and go right out there for the next round. So I thought he ticked a box there."

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Michael Bisping explains why Sean O'Malley beat Petr Yan

The split decision victory that went Sean O'Malley's way was controversial to say the least. There was widespread uproar amongst fans, pundits and fighters who thought Petr Yan deserved the result to go his way.

Michael Bisping weighed in on the judges' scorecards on his live stream and advocated against it being a "robbery." He maintained that it was a close fight.

"That was a close fight. A very, very close fight. I thought 'Sugar' Sean won the first round because Yan is a slow starter... I do recall at the end of the fight that I thought Petr Yan won, but I don't think it was a robbery. It was a very close fight. The number one criteria in judging a fight is damage. I think if you looked at Yan, he had absorbed the most damage."

Watch the complete live stream on Michael Bisping's YouTube channel:

As well as fans and fighters expressing disagreement with the result online, zero of the 25 submitted media scores on MMA Decisions awarded Sean O'Malley the win.

In the aftermath of the contest, 'Sugar' also admitted that he wasn't sure whether or not he'd done enough to earn the nod.