Michael Bisping is refusing to step down in his feud with Conor McGregor, and has told the Irishman he won't be keeping his name out of his mouth.
The former middleweight champion has had a back-and-forth with McGregor over the past few days. It started when the Irishman, seemingly out of nowhere, took aim at the Brit's acting career, which caused Bisping to hit back on his podcast and declare he's only able to say such things due to his sizeable security detail.
McGregor then declared the pair could be about to "go to war", and threatened to come to Bisping's home in California after hearing his comments on a recent episode. The Irishman has most recently branded his rival a "little sprinter", as well as declaring that he was a "s*** fighter, s*** actor".
The pair share the same management company in Paradigm Sports, but are known to go back-and-forth. Speaking about the feud on his podcast, Bisping insisted that there was no beef between the pair, saying: "I don't want to throw fuel on the fire and I'm not interested in any beef or whatever.
"We talked about McGregor firing f***ing stray bullets at me for whatever reason and talked a bit of s***. We had a bit of a laugh about it on the podcast, and it must have touched a nerve, bless him, because he's come out throwing all sorts of insults around threatening to cave my head in."
A number of outlets reported on Bisping's comments, and McGregor's subsequent outburst, but the Brit insists that it was just a joke taken out of context. "If you watched the show, we were having a laugh," he explained. "I said 'make sure you've got your security with you,' or whatever, it was a f***ing joke.
Who are you backing in the Conor McGregor vs Michael Bisping feud? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
"Obviously there's no threats from my end there whatsoever, he's kind of flipped his lid a bit and lost his mind. Anyway, Conor, relax buddy, Jesus goddamn Christ. Anyway, there you go, I've been told to keep his name out of my f***ing mouth, I'm not going to do that. I can't do that, I talk about MMA and he's the biggest star in MMA. When you become a star of that kind of magnitude, people are going to talk. Anyway, all the best.
"I'm just a little bit older, I am maturing because everyone on Twitter was like 'what's the beef?' I'm like 'there is no beef'. He for some reason started throwing shots at me because of my acting work and we had a laugh about it on the podcast, that's it, I guess I am maturing, I'm not interested, I don't even think about the guy."
In McGregor's deleted voice message to Bisping, he said: "Do you want to go to war, man, yeah? Do you want to go to f***ing war? I'll go to war with you, yeah. Security you little sausage of a thing, I'll have security set you up, where do you stay when you're in Vegas again, pal? Little Apex f**** pad.
"Keep my name out of your f***ing mouth in any type of threatening behaviour, or I'll walk through your front door. Yup Laguna [the area where Bisping lives in California], you little dope. Yup the Mancs yeah, go back where you belong you little clown, you little sprinter."