Morning Report: Michael Bisping calls Tom Aspinall eye poke recovery timetable ‘f*cking weird’

Michael Bisping, UFC champion, Hall of Famer. It doesn’t sound so strange now, but there was a time when it looked like “The Count” was always going to fall just short of greatness.

On Thursday, Bisping celebrated the 10-year anniversary of his unbelievable middleweight championship upset of Luke Rockhold at UFC 199. It wasn’t even supposed to be Bisping’s opportunity as he actually stepped in on less than three weeks’ notice for an injured Chris Weidman.

Bisping was already 25 fights into his UFC career before he finally got his title shot, and it happened to be against Rockhold, who submitted him in a little under six minutes when they first fought in 2014. Sure, Bisiping was on a nice three-fight win streak including a thrilling five-round decision win over the legendary Anderson Silva, but Rockhold was supposed to roll through Bisping and then proceed to rematch Weidman at a later date.

Instead, Bisping absolutely smoked Rockhold, battering him on the feet and knocking him out cold in the first round.

Considering where Bisping was at in his career and how easily he lost the first time, where do you rank his championship win among the most surprising in UFC history?