How Michael Bisping Fought With One Eye

That always pissed me off. Why? I don't mean Nick Newell fighting with one hand pissed me off, but how can you fight with one hand when you can't fight with one eye? They told you you can't fight? No, you can't. You can't fight with one eye. But how, like, I always wanted to ask you this. When was your vision first compromised? Was it after the, it was after the Vitor fight, right? It was the Vitor fight that did it, and I slowly started getting my symptoms. I was doing this a lot in restaurants. You know, restaurants are dark, some of them. I was like, I was doing this, you know, my friends would be like, oh, he's doing that thing again with his hands. I'm like, can you see your hand there if you do that? So the people are just listening. You have your hand next to your face. Yeah, I'd be like. And you're like moving your fingers around. And you couldn't see it? Yeah, exactly. And then by the end, it was like right in front of me there, and I couldn't see. And it was at that point I called the doctor. But I fought Alan Belcher after the Vitor Belfor fight. And then, as I say, as this was getting worse and worse and worse, I called the doctor. And he said, yeah, you got to detach wetner. He fixed that. He re-detached. I got glaucoma. It was just bad luck. One thing after the other. Anything that could go wrong with an eye went wrong. Yeah. How did you get to the point where you're fighting GSP? Like, how did you pass those tests? With great difficulty. Lying, cheating, bullshit codes. I fucking lied to so many doctors. I went to England. I was doing some work for BT Sport at the time. Dana was trying to help me out because it looked like I wasn't going to be fighting. So I went over there doing some work for BT Sport. And I was talking about fighting again. And they said, well, we want to take you to a doctor of our choice. So I said, all right, cool, whatever. And I'm shitting my pants. And I had to do this test where you look into this thing and there's all these lights. And you push a button when you see the light pop up. And I just fucking guessed it. I just fucking guessed it. I'm like, oh. You just guessed it? I guessed it and I passed. And then there was another one. They took me to see another doctor. And I went in and this doctor was an old Indian guy. He's a lovely, sweet man. And there was a guy in there like an old war veteran. He could hardly walk like about 100 or something years old. Very eccentric old gentleman. And this doctor says, I'm just going to walk this man to the car, go into my office, make yourself at home. I'm like, fucking get in because I walked in and the eye test was there. It was an old school one. It wasn't a digital one. It was like a triangle, you know. Three sides to it. And all you've got to pass is you've got to have 2,200 vision to pass, which is still clinically blind. But on the eye test, it's the big one at the top. And then the two underneath it. So still pretty big. So I'm like, okay, D, B, E, spin it round. C, D, E. So I remembered all three. And the doctor doesn't know that I'm trying to cheat the test. He thinks I'm fucking trying to check on my vision like a normal person. You know what I mean? So he covers up my bad eye first. And he says, what can you see? Go through it all. Very good. And then he doesn't move it round. And he says, okay, what can you see there? And that's where these couple of shitty acting lessons I had paid off. I'm like, D, C, E. I'm like, oh, gets a little blurry after that, Doc, if I'm honest. Couldn't see a fucking thing. And he's like, okay, you've passed. He said, listen, you've passed to fight, he said, but I wouldn't fight. He said, because if anything happens to your good eye, you're going to go blind. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, Doc. Yeah. Well, I'll give it some thought. I'll maybe I'll talk to my family. Yeah. Oh, God. What a situation, right? Yeah. And I walked out. Fucking come on. Because it meant I was back. Right. But of course, then every time you fight, you still got to get checked by a doctor again every time at the Wayans. You know, so that was always very, very worrisome. So how'd you pass those? They just didn't check very good. I mean, I had a code with Perillo. He always came in with me. And I said, right, because all they've got to do, because now this is a prosthetic lens, as you know. And I only got this in 2018. So without the prosthetic lens in it, it looks awful. Do you know what I mean? It looks worse now than what it did back then. Over time, it's deteriorated and got worse and worse. But I thought, all they've got to do is look at that eye and say, how many fingers can you see? So I said to Perilla, if he holds up one finger, you go, if he holds up two, yawn, whatever, he holds up three, we just came up with these shitty codes, you know what I mean? But we never had to use it once, because I remember once the doctor, when you could see out of that eye, right? I said, yeah, of course I can. I said, I've got all the paperwork. OK, cool. Wow. That was it. That was it. That was the exit. That was all right. Sweet. Cool. Yeah. Very few people would have still fought. At one eye, that's usually the price where most people are not willing to pay anymore. Yeah. Well, I just moved to America, bought this stupid big house that I didn't need. I had a lawsuit going on with my former management, which was completely fabricated. The legal fees were just incredible. I just couldn't quit. I had no choice. I had to still fight. Now life's great, but back then I was still very much financially struggling. And yeah, all I had. Well, I had to fight this court case, this legal lawsuit, and that was costing a fortune. And it's all I knew at that time. That's one of the craziest stories ever, that you won the middleweight title with one eye. Yeah. And you won it by lying to the doctors. Yeah, I was terrified. I was terrified every time I fought. I mean, I don't want to say too much. Didn't it fuck with your debt perception though? Because that's one of the things that they say about- All the time. I'll go and grab that bottle, for example. Now I'm fine because my brain's touched it. So I know where it's at. I can judge it. But the first time I miss, I miss all the time. I'm always misreading how far something is away. Do you know what I mean? Right. Because you have the debt perception and everything's in 2D. And then sometimes it can fuck with me a little bit. Sometimes I start getting a little blurry and like, I don't know, I get a little dizzy because it's like sometimes, it's only sometimes. All of a sudden I'm like, whoa, I can't fucking figure anything. What about driving? Like everything's fine. But everything's on the right side. Yeah. You have to turn to see if someone's next to you and the next lane. All the time. Yeah, if I'm changing lane, I always have to give it one of those. Right. And turn really far. Yeah. And I'm always hitting people in the face. And it's always an old lady. Oh no. The amount of times, because I'm very animated. Right. I talk with my hands. Like for example, I'm at a crosswalk in New York City and I'm in the middle of telling a story and I'm like, oh, oh my God, I am so sorry. Oh no. I've gone like that into someone's face. And it's always a little old lady. For some reason, always and all. They look at me like I'm the biggest dickhead on the planet. I'm so sorry. I am so sorry. Oh, that's horrible. Yeah, but is there any hope for your eye? No. Nothing. There's nothing they can do in terms of repair. Well, if you look at that. Wow, it has gotten worse. Yeah, there's just nothing there. So. Wow. When I got this done, which changed my life in many ways, to be honest, I was just sick of looking like that. So you don't see anything out of it. No light, nothing. If I cover up my good eye and the lights go on and off, the shade of blackness changes. So yeah, just ever so slightly. I can tell when the lights gone on and off. That's it. And there's no replacement lenses or anything that they can do. I saw or I heard recently that they're putting in robotic eyes or something like that. Yeah, but I haven't looked into it yet because. Two fake knees and a fake eye. Yeah, yeah. Imagine if it's better. Oh, no, I know. Could you imagine? I'm fucking back. Let's go. I'm back. One more for the road. Two fake knees, step it into the octagon. That would be wild. Fake knees and a fake eye. I think they have an electronic eye that they've created that offers superior vision. And I think it's just in the testing phases now. But see if you can find that, Jamie. I'm pretty sure that it is superior to normal eyesight. And the way that it interacts with the brain, I don't understand. I don't know how it interacts with the optic nerves and the signals that it sends. Yeah, no, I'm sure it is better with technology that they have. One day. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's why I retired though, because the doctor said, and they always said, if something goes wrong with your good eye, you'll go blind.