UFC 159 results recap: Michael Bisping vs Alan Belcher fight review and analysis

A very odd top 10 middleweight match-up took place last night (April 27, 2013) as top contender Michael Bisping took on rival Alan Belcher in the co-main event of UFC 159 in Newark, New Jersey.

Both Bisping and Belcher entered the fight on the heels of losing their opportunities to potentially fight for the middleweight title. Belcher had cone up short against Yushin Okami while Bisping had fallen to the likes of Vitor Belfort, respectively.

Early on, each man had each other's respect in a lengthy feeling-out process where both Bisping and Belcher failed to land anything considerably significant. Bisping was respecting Belcher's power early on while Belcher was looking to avoid walking into Bisping's speed.

By the second round, one of the two men had finally settled into a groove and he began unloading combinations in quick succession. That man was Bisping. Over the course of the round, "The Count" repeatedly beat Belcher to the punch and popped him with jabs, straight rights and hooks.

Despite being outstruck handily, Belcher's hands remained low looking for the big knockout blow, but it never came. The closest he got was a streak at the end of the second where he popped Bisping a few times in succession but even then he no longer had the explosiveness in his movement to follow-up and do anything serious.

The third looked worst of all as Bipsing had one-way traffic against Belcher and really started to load up on his right hands, popping "The Talent" with everything he had. Unfortunately for Belcher, one of those things just so happened to be an incidental illegal eye poke, which jabbed him at the very end of the bout.

Belcher dropped to the canvas in obvious glaring pain and after the doctor was brought in, they ruled a stop to the contest, asking instead for a technical decision to be delivered by the judges, who ruled that Bisping had done more than enough to win over the course of the contest.

For complete UFC 159 results, including blow-by-blow, fight-by-fight coverage of the entire event as well as immediate post-fight reaction click here, here and here.