Robert Whittaker knee injury could bench ‘The Reaper’ until 2018 — and open the door for Bisping vs St-Pierre

The oft-teased Michael Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre middleweight title fight just got one step closer to becoming a reality, though it had a little help from newly-crowned interim champion Robert Whittaker.

That’s because “The Reaper” suffered a grade two medial ligament injury to his left knee during his win over Yoel Romero at the UFC 213 pay-per-view (PPV) event earlier this month in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“The injury itself, it’s not really my job to understand,” Whittaker told Daily Telegraph (via MMA Fighting). “All I can say is that it’s a serious grade two medial and hurt like hell when it happened. Doctors always think the end of the world, right? If it was up to them I’d be in a wheelchair.”

Romero was expected to challenge Bisping for the middleweight strap; however, the return of Georges St-Pierre, as well as the knee surgery to “The Count,” kept pushing that date further and further away.

The promotion compensated with an interim championship, but now its owner could be sidelined until 2018. Former champion Luke Rockhold is always a possibility, but that would require this rivalry to end.

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