Justin Gaethje wasn’t impressed with Michael Bisping’s commentary work at UFC 286.
The lightweight contender called Bisping out for what he perceived to be biased commentary when it came time to call Saturday’s welterweight championship main event bout between Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman. Edwards and Bisping both hail from England, while Gaethje is a training partner of Usman’s.
Edwards defeated Usman by majority decision to retain the 170-pound title.
“I thought [Usman] won the fight,” Gaethje said when asked for his thoughts on the Edwards-Usman trilogy bout. “But I’m probably as biased as the judges. Certainly not as biased as Michael Bisping, who shouldn’t have been nowhere near a microphone during that fight. It sucks.”
Gaethje did not provide any specific examples for why he perceived Bisping’s commentary to be biased. The British MMA legend was on the call for the entirety of Saturday’s pay-per-view in London, which featured several fighters from the U.K. in action.
Asked if he felt that commentators shouldn’t be assigned to bouts featuring friends and teammates, Gaethje declined to share his opinion.
“It’s not my call,” Gaethje said. “I just thought it was very unprofessional.”
Bisping wasn’t the only UFC employee that had Gaethje scratching his head as his co-main event fight against Rafael Fiziev also ended in a majority decision draw with a result that was read out in an unorthodox manner. Ring announcer Bruce Buffer read a 29-28 Gaethje score first, then a second 29-28 score with no name attached to it, and then the 28-28 score before announcing Gaethje as the winner.
Gaethje was confident he had won the fight, but it was still a confusing moment for him.
“The way that he announced it was very weird,” Gaethje said. “He said 29-28 Gaethje and then he said 29-28 and didn’t follow with a name, so I was like, ‘What the f*** is going on?’ but then I heard 28-28. I knew that I won that fight. I wouldn’t have done that backflip if I wasn’t 99 percent sure that I won that fight.”
And then there’s UFC President Dana White, who might have been concerned about Gaethje celebrating his win with one of his spectacular off-the-cage flips. But he’s sure the boss won’t have a problem with it.
“No, he loves it,” Gaethje said when asked about the celebration.