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UFC 199 blog: Michael Bisping realizes decade-long championship dream

Dominick Cruz dominates Urijah Faber for unanimous decision

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Hans Gutknecht / Los Angeles Daily News via AP

Michael Bisping, left, fights Luke Rockhold during a UFC 199 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Saturday.

Updated Saturday, June 4, 2016 | 10:27 p.m.

Note: Full results from the preliminary card are available at the bottom of the page.

Michael Bisping toiled in the UFC for a decade, winning the second-most fights in promotional history but staying just a rung below championship level in the eyes of most around the sport.

The 37-year-old smashed that perception with one left hook Saturday night in the main event of UFC 199 at the Forum, stunning Luke Rockhold with a first-round knockout victory to win the middleweight championship.

“There’s nothing I’ve ever been better at than fighting,” Bisping said with his family assembled behind him in the octagon. “This was my dream. No one was taking this away from me.”

With Rockhold closing as high as a 9-to-1 favorite, Bisping’s win goes down as one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. He accepted the fight on just more than two weeks’ notice after Rockhold’s original opponent, Chris Weidman, had to withdraw with an injury.

“Two weeks, two days, two hours,” Bisping yelled. “It doesn’t matter.”

Bisping avenged his last loss, which came two years ago when Rockhold submitted him in the second round after scoring a head-kick knockdown. Bisping was mostly dismissed this week when he claimed he was successful in the boxing portion of their first fight, but he built his UFC 199 game plan around it anyway.

Bisping pressured Rockhold, and it paid off when he threw a combination with a right hand to the body followed by a left to the chin. Rockhold went out cold, making the official time of Bisping’s victory 3:36 of the first round.

“He caught me,” Rockhold said. “I didn’t see it happening. I took it for granted.”

The other title fight on the card went more according to plan for the champion. Dominick Cruz had no trouble with Urijah Faber, winning via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46).

Cruz was too fast and slick for his longtime rival, whom he beat for the second time in a UFC bantamweight title fight.

“It feels so good to be able to compete again,” Cruz said after winning his second fight back since the latest in a long line of injuries that lingered for four years.

Faber announced he would consider retirement after his fourth UFC championship loss. Light-heavyweight legend Dan Henderson will do the same, but if he decides to walk away, he’ll be doing so on a high.

Henderson, 45, registered one of the best knockouts in UFC history when he rendered Hector Lombard unconscious with an elbow after landing a head kick at 1:27 of the second round. The packed crowd gave Henderson the loudest ovation of the night for his victory.

Also on the pay-per-view, featherweight Max Holloway and lightweight Dustin Poirier inched closer to their own championship opportunities. Holloway won a ninth straight fight by winning every round on every judges’ scorecard against Ricardo Lamas.

Poirier made quick work of Bobby Green, winning via knockout at 2:53 of the first round, for a fourth straight victory.

Holloway and Poirier will hear their share of naysayers as they work toward their goals, the same type of doubts that surrounded the 37-year-old Bisping his entire career.

“People say I don’t have punching power,” Bisping said. “I know I can punch. This guy demolishes everybody. I knocked him out in the first round.”

Check below for full results from the UFC 199 preliminary card and come back later for more coverage.

Pre-fight

When Luke Rockhold became middleweight champion in December, he said the one event where he was not open to defending his title for the first time was UFC 199.

Yet here is tonight at the Forum putting his championship belt on the line against Michael Bisping in that very event.

The sense at the time, from Rockhold and others, was that UFC 199 would be little more than a stopgap event on the way to July’s historic UFC 200. Instead of running from it, Rockhold has taken it upon himself to break that perception — especially over the last two weeks since original opponent Chris Weidman dropped out with an injury.

Rockhold has entertained a war of words perpetuated by Bisping, Weidman’s replacement, touching on everything from what happened when they trained together in 2012 to when they first fought in 2014. Rockhold submitted Bisping after knocking him down in the second round, but the challenger believes the bout was closer than most remember.

He thought he managed some replicable success during the first round’s boxing exchanges. He also speaks of a higher confidence after defeating former champion Anderson Silva in February.

Rockhold contends that not only is he better than Silva currently, but he always was. On a mission to be regarded as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world, it’s no surprise Rockhold initially hoped to fight at UFC 200.

The co-main event was also once slated for a more historic event. Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber were supposed to have their third meeting in 2012 at UFC 148 — the card headlined by Silva and Chael Sonnen that started the promotion’s now annual International Fight Week event in Las Vegas — but the champion tore his ACL.

It took four years for Cruz to fully recover and win back the belt he vacated, and now in his first defense, he gets his longtime enemy. The build-up to Cruz vs. Faber III has been as contentious as Rockhold vs. Bisping II.

Years of aggression are coming out in both cases, which could make for a special fight night. The supporting fights on the pay-per-view could help too.

Future Hall of Famer and 45-year-old Dan Henderson fights possibly for the final time against longtime Bellator champion Hector Lombard in the second main-card bout.

Lombard was mentioned among the middleweight title contenders until a failed drug test last year.

Featherweight Max Holloway might be the next to fight for the title in his division as the 24-year-old has won eight straight riding into a matchup with former top contender Ricardo Lamas.

One of Holloway’s three losses came in his debut against Dustin Poirier, who’s in the pay-per-view opener against Bobby Green. The lightweight bout has the closest odds on the card, and pits two fighters known for excitement.

Follow along with the Sun’s round-by-round live blog of the event and look below for full preliminary results.

Brian Ortega added a big name to his undefeated stretch at featherweight. Ortega put away Clay Guida, winning via knockout at 4:40 of the third round.

Beneil Dariush starched James Vick with a knockout victory at 4:16 of the first round. Dariush knocked Vick down on a couple occasions before finishing the lightweight contest with a counter left hook.

Jessica Andrade put on the biggest beatdown of the undercard. Andrade destroyed Jessica Andrade for more than seven minutes en route to picking up a TKO victory at 2:56 of the second round in a women's strawweight bout.

Alex Caceres picked apart Cole Miller on the feet to earn a unanimous-decision victory (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) in a featherweight bout. Caceres easily won the striking portions of the bout, but had to work his way out of a few submissions.

Sean Strickland apologized for his fight not having much action, but wasn't unhappy with the result. Strickland won a split decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29) in a welterweight bout over Tom Breese, whom he blamed for the lack of action.

Light heavyweight Luis Henrique da Silva pulled the first upset of the card. Da Silva defeated previously undefeated Jonathan Wilson via TKO at 4:11 of the second round after getting staggered by punches himself moments earlier.

Kevin Casey fought to a split draw (29-28, 28-29, 28-28) in a middleweight bout against Elvis Mutapcic within hours of legendary father-in-law, Muhammad Ali, passing away.

The Fight of the Night hardly ever comes in the first fight, but it might have tonight. Marco Reyes knocked out Dong Hyun Kim at 1:52 of the third round in a lightweight bout following both fighters rocking each other with strikes on multiple occasions.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.

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