Former Ultimate Fighter 3 winner Michael Bisping was supposed to fight fellow TUF participant Chris Leben at UFC 85 and as other fights scheduled for the card did not happen. After Bisping destroyed Jason Day at UFC 85 he moved to 2-0 at his new middleweight class and a step closer to a title fight. Leben who is also on a 2 fight win streak is ready to play spoiler to "The Count's" run at Anderson Silva's title. Fans almost expect this fight to be a stand up war well Joe Silva no need to fear as Michael Bisping in an interview with Setantasports confirmed what his plans are for the fight.“I want to go out and show my skills, my last fight hit the ground too much – he (Jason Day) gave me the opportunity to take him down, and he couldn't handle the ground-and-pound…. Your next fight is always your biggest fight, you’re only as good as your last fight, so yeah this is the biggest fight of my life. I’m not gonna go more cautious because it’s Chris Leben. I’ll do what I normally do, look to stand on the feet and set the pace. It’s the same in every fight, you assess the situation, play it by ear, punches get thrown –- and hopefully we’ll get the stand-up brawl we all want.”
There is little to no doubt Leben will want to do the same as Bisping in their fight, Leben has rarely ever taken a fight to the ground. Out of Leben's 18 wins 10 of them are by T/KO and he has only been KO'd once in his career by Anderson Silva in what was a 49 second destruction. Bisping on the other hand has finished 11 of his 16 wins by T/KO and has never been finished, in his only loss he was beaten by Rashad Evans in a lackluster fight at UFC 78. The loss after a very controversial win over Matt Hamill which many thought wrongly prompted Bisping to move down in weight to 185 pounds. We will find out at UFC 89 if both fighters can punch their way to a 3rd straight victory.
