Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold Trade Verbal Barbs in Australia

Everyone got his or her camera ready?

Notorious tongue-wagger Michael Bisping and his next opponent, Luke Rockhold, engaged in some vigorous trash talk Thursday during a media event in Australia.

The profanity-laced exchange happened as the two middleweights stood nose-to-nose surrounded by a gaggle of reporters and other event participants and with the Sydney Opera House perched majestically in the background. (See full video of the exchange above, courtesy of Australian MMA show Submission Radio.)

"Look at you, you're pathetic," Bisping said in his Manchester accent and expensive-looking jacket (no tie) as Rockhold was led away by other people at the scene. "Control yourself, boy." 

Most of the smack centered around the important topic of who exactly the other man had knocked out during his mixed martial arts career. That emerged as a natural outflow of the original but shorter-lived line of discussion, namely a series of rapid-fire threats from each man along the lines of "I am going to knock you the [expletive] out."

When a well-coiffed Rockhold demanded the knockout bona fides of Bisping, Bisping tartly retorted that he had just finished knocking out Rockhold's "boyfriend" two weeks ago. That would have to be a reference to Cung Le, who trains alongside Rockhold at the American Kickboxing Academy in California.

"Yeah, I saw it, and I wasn't impressed," responded Rockhold. 

After that comment, Bisping leaned back, waved his fingers in Rockhold's direction and said "woo!" in a gesture one assumes was born out of sarcasm.

Bisping has 15 knockout wins in his professional MMA career. Rockhold has three. Bisping's win over Le came by TKO following a knee from the clinch in the fourth round of their headlining bout at UFC Fight Night 48. Rockhold's last knockout win was the result of a body kick and happened in the first round of his January main event contest with Costas Philippou.

"All that matters," said Bisping at the close of Thursday's trash-talk session, "is that I'm going to beat you on November 8. It's coming."

The two men are scheduled to tangle in the main event of UFC Fight Night 55 going down on that date in Sydney. 

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