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Following UFC 122, our Euro buddies at Kimura.se caught up with scheduled co-headliner Jorge Rivera to discuss his reaction to Alessio Sakara‘s surprise illness-withdrawal. Rivera’s hands were already wrapped by the time he got the news, and he was "in shock" to learn he wouldn’t be fighting. On the bright side, he already has bigger things lined up. Said Jorge: 

"I’ve got a good fight coming up in Australia, and I’m gonna take a couple weeks off to go home and just relax, because I’ve training hard since about June. My last fight, I had to pull out about July, because I had broken my arm, but I was still training with a broken arm, I wanted to fight. I’ve been training hard now for about five, six months, so I need some time just to relax, man…And then I’m gonna train real, real, real hard. I really want this next fight, man. I not only want the fight, I wanna fuck him up. [Interviewer: Who are you fighting in Australia?] Michael Bisping…that is a scoop I’m giving you right now."


So first off, "Australia" means UFC 127, the UFC’s return to Sydney on February 27th. At this point, the only other reported match for the card is Carlos Condit vs. Chris Lytle.

As for why Rivera so passionately wants to fuck Bisping up? Maybe he sees Bisping as one of those boring round-winners he despises so much. Maybe he’s just antsy from inactivity, having not competed since his demolition of Nate Quarry in March. Maybe he just hates soap operas. We could sit here speculating all day. So we’ll just go with the soap opera thing.

Michael Bisping fought in the co-headliner of the UFC’s last Australia show, losing a unanimous decision to Wanderlei Silva. Since then, he’s picked up decision victories over Dan Miller and Yoshihiro Akiyama. Can the Count make it three in a row, or does this one belong to the American hero?