MMAWeekly has a great interview with UFC Middleweight and TUF3 winner Michael Bisping in which he shares his thoughts about the upcoming fight between Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson, the winner to coach opposite him in the next season of the Ultimate Fighter.

Popular Opinion and all indications are that the winner in the eventual fight between Bisping and the other coach will get to face UFC Middleweight Champion and Pound-for-Pound fighter Anderson “Spider” Silva. Bisping, who since moving down to the Middleweight division has been on a tear analysed the fight, breaking down each fighters strengths.

“Rich Franklin is probably the smarter fighter out of the two. I think he’s got better footwork, probably more technically composed fighter. Dan’s got great knockout power obviously. They’re both fantastic fighters,” Bisping commented.

“If I had to pick a winner, I’d probably go out on a limb and say Rich Franklin by decision, to be honest.”

A win against either of the fighters will cement Bisping’s position at the top of the contenders list at middleweight and solidify his claim to the throne. As popular as “the Count” is as a fighter, this will probably be the most important fight that he will have to fight post UFC 93.

image courtesy: sun.co.uk

One of the clearer choices is of course, Michael Bisping for the coach of Team UK. Bisping also mentioned recently in a newspaper that he would be more than happy to be the coach, if approached for the role. I am fairly sure that this would be a done deal once Bisping finishes with his current assignment – a much anticipated fight against Chris Leben on the UFC 89 card in October.

Rumours are also circulating regarding Dan Henderson being roped in to coach Team USA. This makes a lot of sense as Hendo and Bisping, along with Nate Marquardt are the three fighters in the UFC middleweight division who can be looked on as contenders for Anderson Silva’s title. TUF9 will prove to be a great platform to see who out of Hendo and Bisping can be called the No.1 contender for the belt.

Henderson, a long time coach and co-founder of Team Quest is also going to be Michael Bisping’s biggest match in the UFC to date, should this match happen.

Tryouts for TUF 9 begin October 20th.

The latest season of The Ultimate Fighter is almost upon us and Frank Mir, one of the coaches of the latest season talks about his coaching style, the assistant coaches he is bringing in such as Robert Drysdale – who choked out Marcelo Garcia in a minute and some. Mir even mentions guest coaches such as Demian Maia, Greg Jackson and Dan Henderson. Mir talks about getting the best in the business in for his team because he believes he owes it to his team to get them the best all-round perspective in the game for them to excel. Spike does not allow us to embed the video, so check it out here: Mir’s Coaching staff