MACAU – A stiff second-round punch badly damaged Cung Le’s right eye, and despite his valiant effort to fight on, fellow middleweight veteran Michael Bisping exploited the edge and earned a fourth-round victory.
The middleweight bout, which ultimately saw Bisping (25-6 MMA, 15-6 UFC) stop Le (9-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC) with a swarm of punches and kicks, headlined today’s UFC Fight Night 48 event at The Venetian Macao’s CotaiArena in Macau. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass.
In the scheduled five-rounder, which concluded the first part of today’s UFC doubleheader in Macau and Oklahoma, Bisping got bragging rights after a contentious pre-fight buildup between the rivals.
ALSO SEE: Michael Bisping vs. Cung Le fight video highlights
The story of the first round was kicks. Both fighters successfully landed low, and Le mixed in some solid blows to the body. However, as the round wore on, Bisping’s punches finally found their mark, and it continued in the next frame.
Early in that second round, Bisping, who picked up his first win since an extended injury layoff in 2013, popped Le with a couple punches. Le, the former Strikeforce champion, winced and clearly had an eye issue, but it came from a punch, not a poke, and the veteran kickboxer didn’t put up much of a protest while dodging additional blows. However, with just one good eye from the legal blow, Le soon became an easy mark for Bisping. The Brit unloaded a series of combinations, and Le’s nose gushed blood as the punches mounted.
Le got a brief timeout as the cageside physician checked his eye, and after a quick restart, he fought through bloodied vision to deliver a few sharp body kicks. Bisping, though, continued landing as Le’s face swelled and became an absolute mess, though the doctor surprisingly cleared him for the third round.
Le, though, was no easy target as the fight reached the midway point. Despite smears of blood and gruesome swelling all over his face, he survived Bisping’s continued combinations in the third round and even delivered some jarring body kicks and counter-punches. But early in the fourth round, an extended barrage of kicks and punches put him down for good, and the ref waved off the fight at the 0:57 mark of the round.
“I took some time off and had some problems, and when I came back, it didn’t go well,” said Bisping, who suffered a detached retina and then looked flat in a loss to Tim Kennedy when he returned to the cage in April. “This is what I’m capable of, and believe me I’m capable of better.”
Bisping, 35, hasn’t given up hope for an elusive title shot, and he called out fellow contender Luke Rockhold as a possible next opponent.
“I want to be a world champion, and I know I have to back it,” he said. “This is backing it up. … I’m beating Luke Rockhold, and then I’m winning the title.”
Le, meanwhile, gave props to his opponent.
“After the first round, I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t mount much offense,” said the fighter/budding actor, who snapped a two-fight winning streak but suggest retirement isn’t imminent. “… I gave it my all, but he was the better man tonight.”
Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 48 results include:
- Michael Bisping def. Cung Le via TKO (strikes) – Round 4, 0:57
- Tyron Woodley def. Dong Hyun Kim via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:01
- Zhang Lipeng def. Brendan O’Reilly via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
- Ning Guangyou def. Jianping Yang via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) – wins “TUF: China” featherweight tournament
- Wang Sai def. Danny Mitchell via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Alberto Mina def. Shinsho Anzai via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 4:17
- Yuta Sasaki def. Roland Delorme via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 1:06
- Colby Covington def. Anying Wang via submission (strikes) – Round 1, 4:50
- Royston Wee def. Yao Zhikui via split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
- Milana Dudieva def. Elizabeth Phillips via split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
For more on UFC Fight Night 48, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.
(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan contributed to this report on-site in Macau.)
