Luke Rockhold: Michael Bisping’s title reign ‘the worst in UFC history’

After disposing of David Branch in the second round of their UFC Pittsburgh main event on Saturday, former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold was pointed in who he addressed ... and who he didn’t.

Rockhold's words in the Octagon were for Georges St-Pierre, who is coming out of retirement to meet middleweight champion Michael Bisping in the main event of UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden.

On Wednesday, though, Rockhold finally had something to say about Bisping, the man who scored an upset knockout to win the title from Rockhold at UFC 199.

Rockhold said he considers Bisping’s reign, to this point, to be legendarily bad. Bisping defended his belt against Dan Henderson last October and will be out 13 months by the time he meets St-Pierre, the former welterweight champ who has been out of action nearly four years.

“I think it’s the worst in UFC history,” Rockhold said on Wednesday’s edition of the FS1 show UFC Tonight. “No one has ever gotten that treatment, no one has avoided all the top contenders. He was supposed to fight Jacare, he avoided that, he was supposed to fight Yoel, he avoided that, and somehow he’s getting away from this fight Whittaker. He found Dan Henderson, the No. 14th ranked at the time, and now he’s going for GSP. He hasn’t done anything.“

Rockhold, in fact, says he considers interim champion Robert Whittaker or standout contender Yoel Romero better challenges than Bisping.

“That would be Robert Whittaker, that would be the real champion, that’s the man who is fighting all the guys,” Rockhold. “We’ll see what his timetable is of course, obviously a third option is Yoel Romero.”

Bisping has hinted that he’ll retire after the GSP fight, something which doesn’t seem to surprise Rockhold.

“I’m going to put myself in position. He’s going to have a choice. Either he stands and fights like a man, or he runs. And we all know what he’s doing. He’s ran from the start and it looks like he’s going to run to the finish.”