Bisping Fight Play

Michael Bisping is at his best when he doesn’t have to worry about his opponent taking him down. Thales Leites has a significant advantage over Bisping on the ground, but I don’t believe that it will be a factor in this fight because he struggles to get his opponent’s to the ground. This is backed up by the fact that Leites has only completed 31% of all takedown attempts in the UFC.

Michael Bisping has excellent takedown defence. The only type of takedowns which have ever caused him a problem are the kind of traditional wrestling takedowns where his opponent shoots in on him with double legs or powerful single legs. Thales Leites has very poor wrestling and he never tries to take his opponent’s down with these kinds of techniques. Instead he tries to clinch with people against the cage and trip them. It’s almost impossible to take Bisping down using this technique, which means the majority of this fight will be contested standing up. If Leites does manage to get Bisping down with a trip against the cage. Bisping is extremely good at using the cage to quickly scramble back to his feet.

Bisping’s excellent takedown defence means that this fight will most likely be contested standing up and in a 5 round stand up fight you clearly have to favour Bisping…

Thales Leites has improved his striking a lot, but his standup skills are still driven by power as opposed to technique. This means that he is dangerous in the first round, but becomes significantly less dangerous the longer a fight goes on. If Bisping can avoid getting knocked out in the 1st and 2nd rounds, he should easily be able to cruise to a unanimous decision victory. Bisping has been rocked in the past, but he’s very difficult to put away and manages to recover very quickly. I personally feel it’s unlikely that Leites will be able to knock him out.

A 5 round fight is perfect for Bisping, because he can afford to lose the first couple of rounds and then use his superior cardio to dominate the final 3. Leites slows down a lot the longer a fight goes on and Bisping should be able to win this fight by outworking him.

Michael Bisping lands more than double the amount of strikes per minute than Thales Leites. This is largely down to the fact that Bisping has the cardio to fight for 5 hard rounds, whilst Leites needs to conserve energy in order to remain competitive for just 3 rounds.

You also have to take into consideration the fact that Michael Bisping will have home advantage on his side. This means that the judges will most likely score close rounds in his favour. I feel Leites is going to have to put on a dominant performance or finish Bisping inside the distance in order to win this fight and I just don’t see it happening.

I believe Bisping will win this fight by avoiding Leites’ takedowns and heavy hands in the first couple of rounds and then go on to dominate the final rounds by landing a significantly higher volume of strikes.

Thales Leites is a talented fighter, but I have a feeling that this could end up looking a lot like Michael Bisping vs Cung Le.