UFC 127 – Michael Bisping admits he almost pulled out of Rivera fight due to a reoccurring staph infection

UFC middleweight contender, Michael Bisping has admitted that he was almost forced to pull out of his UFC 127 bout with Jorge Rivera later this month after an old staph infection flared up and made it virtually impossible to train for the fight.
Speaking via ESPN.co.uk, Bisping said:

“It was something I picked up in October and then it flared up again at the start of camp. The first couple of weeks it was really bothering me, and I couldn’t really use my arm at one point. My manager did say to me, ‘maybe you’re gonna have to pull out of the fight’, but we still had time. Fortunately the antibiotics have cleared it all up and now the arm’s great.

“My manager was saying, ‘you’re doing great, hopefully we’re on our way to a title shot, so you don’t want to derail anything’. He wasn’t saying, ‘let’s pull out’, but he was saying that I should think about it. But we still had plenty of time and it cleared up.”

“It’s been clear for a couple of weeks now and it’s almost perfect. It’s no problem, I just had to train round it, I could still run and still hit pads etc. I could still do everything but it was just extremely painful.”

Bisping could move himself into title contention at 185 pounds with a win over Rivera in Australia, putting him perhaps one fight away from a date with destiny against long time champion, Anderson Silva. Stay tuned to MMABay in the coming days for more on this one as we get it.