Michael Bispin won the UFC title with one eye. The only reason he was able to continue the competition after he was blind was lying his eyesight test so he could ensure he would compete.
The former middleweight champion never distant from the many eye problems that plagued his career after a head kick from Vitor Belfort in 2013. Recently, Bispin actually uses a prosthetic prosthesis in his right eye, but has been legally blinded for several years after multiple surgeries to repair any damage done.
The problem began with the retina of that detached house from the Battle of Belfort. However, Bispin revealed on his YouTube channel that he was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his eye issues.
“I was sparring pretty hard, in my next fight with Mark Munoz in Manchester,” Bispin said. “I know Sparring is sparring too hard. One of my sparring partners broke (his) hand, someone else broke his leg, and I reboiled my retina.”
Another surgery followed, and over time, glaucoma developed. This could damage the optic nerve and lead to loss of vision, and he had to return to the bottom of the knife again. In fact, Bispin says he actually had 6-7 surgeries, but one of the final steps is where he got the bad news that he lost his eyesight.
Despite that fact, Bispin admits that he never considered retiring from the fight.
“I’ll come the next day (after surgery) and I know I’ll never get out of my eyes again,” Bispin said. “But I was still able to continue fighting. I’m not going to go into detail about how I did it, but I had to tell a lot of lies. I had to fool a lot of tests. It was very, very, very, very stressful.”
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“I will never forget this old Indian doctor. I was in the UK and he wanted to do an eye test. He actually thinks I’m trying to test my eyesight,” Bisping said. “What I was doing was remembering the (eye) chart and, like I said, everything you have to do to pass the test that you have to have a vision of 20/20000 is the big letters at the top and the two letters below that on the old school eye test.
“I sat down and this lovely Indian doctor first covered my bad eyes and he said, “Okay, what do you see?” I’m like D, L, M and he didn’t even spin it. I seemed to know the documentation, of course I didn’t. ”
Bispin continued to find ways to pass these eye tests. This included the biggest fight of his career when he eventually knocked out Luke Rockhold to become the UFC Middleweight Champion.
“I wanted to fight, and I had to get past doctors, tests, everything else,” Bisping said. “Fortunately, I was able to lie. I was able to pull wool in people’s eyes. I was able to take the advantage of some sweet, innocent, kind doctors.
“I left that doctor’s waiting room (in the UK) (come like in the UK and come in!
While he was still fighting, Bispin’s biggest concern was being cleared for competition, but when he began embarking on a career in television, he realized that he had to do something aesthetically to cover his eyes, effectively dead after being declared blind.
That’s why it led him to get the prosthetic cover he still wears today with a hand-drawn lens that appears to have a still-functioning vision, but the truth is that he hasn’t seen it from his right eye in years.