Michael Bisping extends peace offering to Jorge Masvidal: ‘I hope to see him in London’

Former UFC middleweight champ Michael Bisping and long-time UFC welterweight contender Jorge Masvidal have had beef for years. The two fighters have had heated run-ins at a number of past UFC shows, and have not hesitated to swap trash talk in interviews and on social media.

This weekend, Bisping and Masvidal will both be in London for the anticipated UFC London card. Bisping will be working as an analyst for the event, while Masvidal will fight Darren Till in the headlining bout.

Needless to say, the chances of another run-in seem high. Yet Bisping is hoping to squash this beef once and for all before it comes to that.

“I hope I see him in London,” Bisping said of Masvidal on his Believe You Me podcast (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I hope I see him in London so I can just walk over and say, ‘Hey, listen, can we just end this bullsh*t?’ Because as I’ve said, I don’t know the guy! I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me.

Michael Bisping then reiterated that he really has no issue with Jorge Masvidal. Given that they’re bound to cross paths at the host hotel, that’s probably a useful piece of information to put out there.

“I’m not against Masvidal anymore,” Bisping said. “I’ve got no issue with him. I never had.

“Let’s see how he behaves in London. Now that I’m with ESPN and not Fox, when we used to travel to the arenas for Fox, Fox always put us up in a separate hotel – a very, very nice, five-star bougie hotel I might add. Now we’re in UFC hotel, so we’re surrounded by all the fighters and stuff like that. So no doubt I’ll be seeing him around fight week. So let’s see how all that goes. If there’s another interaction, if he’s trying to start a fight with me in the lobby like he did in New York, and in Shanghai, and in London. [But] I think that ship has sailed.”

Do you think it’s time for Michael Bisping and Jorge Masvidal to bury the hatchet?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 3/11/2019.