Trying to get one over a UFC fighter might not be the smartest thing in the world, but when Michael Bisping and Carlos Condit were on a tour in Afghanistan, that’s exactly what happened.
According to the former UFC middleweight champion Bisping, he and Condit were abroad visiting the American military when a gentle sparring experience got taken to a somewhat serious level when a soldier attempted to test Condit during a kickboxing back and forth.
“We did some very cool stuff,” Bisping said, sharing the story on his podcast Believe You Me. “And one of the things we did was go to an out-base where there was a very small camp set up, very little people and it was where some special force — badasses basically — a small group of hardcore special forces guys and they had a tiny little gym set up.
“In that gym was a boxing ring and we went in there and we were meeting these guys and just shooting the shit, talking to them, and then one of them says ‘would you like to spar?’ I was like ‘alright cool. I’ll spar with you.’ So we put the gloves on and I’m just messing with the guy throwing out a couple of light jabs.
“To be fair, the guy was cool. We had a nice friendly spar and I threw a few jabs and I took it easy and that was that, we finished. One guy then says to Carlos Condit — another one of the special forces guys — ‘do you want to spar’ and Carlos Condit says ‘yeah, sure, no problem’. Oh, and by the way, they call him the Natural Born Killer, that guy is cool as fuck. He never raises his voice and he’s super mellow. They put the gloves on and the special forces guy says ‘how hard do you want to spar?’
“Carlos replies ‘I’ll hit you, as hard as you hit me,’ which is a fair answer, but it was a very cool answer because he was [saying] ‘if you want to go hard motherfucker, we will go hard, but if you want to keep it light and friendly then we can go light and friendly, the ball is in your court’.
“So the guy says ‘cool’ but then all of a sudden, right then and there the special forces guy: bang … he sucker punches [Condit] as hard as he can. And I mean a fucking hard shot. And Carlos goes down to the floor.
“It was a big heavy shot, but Carlos gets up, shakes his head, get’s his shit together, and then just goes at the guy. Jab, right hand, left head kick, boom, knocks the special forces guy straight through the ropes onto the floor, unconscious, out cold. Everyone in the room was looking around like holy shit.
“I was like ‘oh Carlos, I’m not sure that was the best thing to do,’ but fair play, ever since I saw that I was like he’s a bad motherfucker man. He’s a great guy.”
Check out a video of the interaction below:
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