Michael Bisping, Conor McGregor: Fights we would love to see happen in mixed martial arts this year

Mixed martial arts has a very good reputation for matchmaking. That said, at the start of each year fans of the sport will scribble down their wishlists just as they do in boxing.

Here are three things we hope happen in 2018.

Michael Bisping’s swan song

UFC returns to London on March 17. It has already been suggested that Bisping will headline, and that it could be his retirement fight. And hopefully, it will be.

Recent shows they’ve staged on these shores have received a mixed critical reception, and many have yearned for more star power when UFC leaves its US comfort zone. Another Bisping main event would certainly help remedy that, especially if it is indeed his last.

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And with the 38-year-old having lost his last two fights decisively, having had the middleweight title reign he had clawed towards for a decade and having ticked off pretty much every career goal he had, it’d be a shame to see him continue fighting much longer.

An emotional final blast of ‘Song 2’ by Blur and, hopefully, one last victory inside the Octagon for ‘The Count’ would be a great scene at the O2 for British MMA diehards.

Three way dance

Will Conor McGregor ever fight for UFC again, let alone in 2018? Who knows. He certainly doesn’t have to, financially. If he does decide that the money for a defense of his lightweight title is worth the training camp, the top two candidates are Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.

Plenty of trash talk has already been exchanged by all three, and while the spectacle that is McGregor would be great inside the cage at least one more time, Dana White stripping him due to inactivity would at the very least give us Khabib vs Ferguson for the vacated title.

Originally scheduled to clash at UFC 209 last year, Nurmagomedov was hospitalised and the fight was called off after Ferguson had successfully made weight. It’d certainly be a welcome and anticipated replacement for McGregor actually defending the title he won over a year ago at Madison Square Garden to become the first MMA fighter to hold two UFC titles at the same time.

British grudge match

Michael ‘Venom’ Page and Paul Daley are two of Bellator’s top names and a British grudge match in the making.

After Daley was defeated by Rory McDonald at Wembley Arena last May, he escalated things with MVP, who watched from ringside, in a wild post-show pull-apart.

It was common knowledge that the fight wouldn’t happen any sooner than 2018, with Page making his boxing crossover debut on David Haye’s debut show as a promoter.

But now is the time for a British MMA collision that could match the likes of Haye-Bellew and Groves-Froch for bad blood.