UFC 127 Fight Card: What Michael Bisping Must Do To Beat Jorge Rivera

Ask me about the UFC 127 fight card this Saturday, and I'll drone on by stating and rephrasing how this is an underrated UFC event that will serve as the stage for one of the UFC's most slept-on co-main events of 2011 so far.

If the thought of Michael "The Count" Bisping's bout with "El Conquistador" Jorge Rivera somehow attracts a swarm of crickets in your mind, then you either must not like the fact that Bisping still breathes air or you really have not heard the verbal warfare that these two have engaged in before this fight.

To be fair, it's not the scrappy Brit who caused the war of words this time, but it's rather his more seasoned foe that said he wants to "f**k him up."

So, what does Bisping have to do to shut Rivera's game down and shut Rivera up for good?

It's quite simple, actually, because Bisping has one universal key to beating Rivera and it's not the heated manner in which he's responded to the verbiage that Rivera has been laying on him.

In fact, before he can implement either of the two keys he possesses to actually winning the fight, he has to keep one edge sharp: keeping his cool.

Some guys can hear their foes talk trash for days, respond back in a similar manner and win a fight despite keeping a hot head in the fight, but Bisping really isn't one of those guys.

He's one of those guys that does better calming down, relaxing and focusing on the fact that his striking needs to be exactly—or close to exactly—what it was in his UFC 120 battle with Yoshihiro Akiyama, as well as the fact that Rivera will likely want the knockout and may not have prepared as much for the take-downs of Bisping.

If Bisping gets into a slug-fest with Rivera, he actually runs more of a risk of defeat than he does by sticking-and-moving on Rivera before closing up the distance and pulling the trigger to land the proverbial kill-shot on "El Conquistador."

Rivera may or may not be the better technical striker compared to Bisping and standing with Rivera in the first place is by no means a bad idea for Bisping, but trying to push a fast and furious pace against a slugger like Rivera—who, to his own credit, can wrap up fights when he gets in close as well—is, in fact, a bad idea for Bisping.

The other key is merely the conditioning factor, but at no time during The Count's run at Middleweight could his conditioning ever truly be questioned.

Again, though, it's all about temperament—the mood that strikes Bisping specifically in this fight.

If Bisping can't keep his emotions enough in check to make Rivera fight the way he wants him to fight, it's going to be a bad night for The Count.

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