Yoel Romero Calls Out UFC For Letting Michael Bisping Fight Gastelum

Yoel Romero

Fight fans and pundits alike all expressed concern over Michael Bisping’s first-round knockout loss to Kelvin Gastelum just three weeks after from Bisping’s loss to GSP at UFC 217.

Now, you can count longtime adversary of the former middleweight champion Yoel Romero in with those who were concerned.

Despite a history of trash talking between the two, Romero questioned why Bisping was encouraged to and allowed to fight less than a month after a grueling defeat while on a recent appearance on The MMA Hour:

“You know, that was the big surprise. Why? It’s so crazy, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how the athletic commission said yes and accepted that he’d fight. It’s so crazy, it’s so crazy.

“I don’t know how the family, the relatives of Michael Bisping allowed him to fight,” Romero explained. “I don’t know why the team, the coaches said, ‘OK, take the fight.’

“I don’t know why Michael Bisping took the fight. I don’t know why the UFC said yes. This is very dangerous, it’s not just a fight, it’s very dangerous. Normally, he needed rest for like 16 to 19 days, you know. But he’s sleeping, he didn’t tap out, he went to sleep (in the St-Pierre bout). When that happens in a fight, like a choke or knockout, you need a rest, like a minimum of 16 days.”

Bisping was bloodied and battered and eventually choked out by Georges St. Pierre, losing his middleweight title in the process. Then out of nowhere, Bisping took a fight with Gastelum after Anderson Silva once again tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

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Gastelum viciously knocked the recently deposed champ out in the first round, in a way Bisping had never been knocked out before. Even though Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort had knocked him out years ago, he fought into the second and third rounds respectively and didn’t get put out in two minutes flat.

Do you agree with Romero that Bisping shouldn’t have taken the fight against Gastelum so soon after losing to GSP?