Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold are both former UFC middleweight champions. They were once bitter rivals, but are now teammates, training together at the RVCA Gym.
Bisping and Rockhold have faced off twice in the UFC Octagon and had one of the most heated rivalries in the UFC. In 2014, they fought the first time, and Rockhold won by submission. In the 2016 rematch at UFC 199, in one of the greatest upsets in MMA history, Bisping knocked out Rockhold and took his UFC middleweight title.
They had a hostile relationship after that, but
On Monday, Bisping posted a photo of himself and Rockhold training with Jason Parillo also shared a video of the two fighters grappling.
Rockhold is a bjj black belt and a former blue belt world champion in the Gi and is a No Gi purple belt world champion. He regularly trains with BJJ world champion Buchecha.
In an interview with Combate, Buchecha explains that the first time he trained with Rokchold was in 2013 and admits that he has already been submitted by the middleweight in the gym.
Luke is a very good black belt. He’s legit. He’s the guy I roll with when I go train at AKA. He loves to train without the Gi, and he is against whom I have the hardest time rolling in AKA. He has a different game, dangerous, with footlocks and inverted triangles. When I go training with him I am always aware, because if I lose focus he submits me. In my opinion, he has the best ground game in MMA, out of the athletes I’ve trained with.
Bisping is a brown belt in BJJ but is not known for his ground game.
Check out the rolling session:
