On Wednesday night we received confirmation that Michael Bisping will replace the injured Chris Weidman and fight for the title against Luke Rockhold at UFC 199.
The news was confirmed after it emerged that Jacare Souza had turned down the fight due to a knee injury suffered in his win over Vitor Belfort in Curitiba, Brazil last week, and with his and Bisping's names being the immediate solution to save UFC 199, it was the Englishman who was offered a shot.
And he didn't hesitate. Despite losing to Rockhold in November 2014, Bisping truly believes that this is his time, and speaking to MMAFighting.com he went off on a fantastic rant explaining why he feels he can dethrone the champ.
I believe it's my destiny. I believe this is all going to add to the story. It's going to make it a much bigger storyline. I'm going to go out there, I'm going to make history. I'm going to become the first world champion to come from the U.K. I'm going to do after almost the 10-year anniversary of getting into the UFC. I believe it's my time.
Listen, I'll put it like this. If people can walk around - and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way to religious people - and you believe the son of God came down to earth 2,000 years ago, and he killed himself for our sins, and he can walk on water, and there's a God up there looking after ourselves, and if you get on your knees and pray to him that things will change, if you can believe that, then you can believe that I can knock the f--k out of Luke Rockhold two weeks from Saturday.
I know what I'm expecting. I know what I'm getting myself into. Is he going to have better cardio than me on that night? Of course, he is. At the end of the day, he's a human being. I'm going to go forward and I'm going to fight with everything I've got. No one's got more heart than me.
Listen, I'm going to take this guy out of there. I'm not going out there to fight five rounds. If I try that, I lose. I'm not going to have the conditioning. Believe you me, I've stopped guys in the first round plenty of times before, albeit earlier in my career. I'm going to go back to that animalistic fighting style, which I have inside me. I'm going to go out on my sword and I tell you what, I'm going to give it everything I've got. Luke Rockhold better be ready.
Jacare's out of the equation. I think he's having his balls lopped off. He's talking about title shots. Here it is, for the taking. Do you not think I have a bad knee? I've torn my posterior cruciate ligament four days before the final of The Ultimate Fighter and decided not to do surgery. My knee hurts every time I take a step. It clicks like hell every time I walk down stairs, after every training session it's agony. I have to ice it every single day, but I want to fight. I want to be the champion. You make these sacrifices. Jacare wouldn't do it, Chris pulled out, everyone else is testing positive for steroids. Here we are, it's me and I'm going to make the most of it.
Wow.
He is not only bursting with self belief ahead of his title shot, but it looks as though he is really up for the media build-up too.
And if we needed any further evidence of that, Bisping came out swining when Fox Sports sat the two fighters down for a conference call on TV last night.
It will almost certainly not go the distance, and on a night when we'll see Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber get re-acquainted, UFC 199 is set to be an unmissable event.
