Michael Bisping and Matt Hamill had a bit of a rivalry on season three of The Ultimate Fighter, which led to the pairing competing inside the octagon. But the former UFC middleweight champion couldn’t be more thrilled for his past foe’s life-changing moment.
To kick off 2025, Hamill revealed that due to a new hearing aid, the first deaf fighter in UFC history was able to hear his family members for the first time in 41 years.
“I was just so happy for the guy,” Bisping told MMA Fighting while promoting his upcoming film Den of Thieves 2. “I mean, yes, on the show we had kind of a tumultuous relationship, we just had a competitive rivalry. I was young, I looked at Matt Hamill as the the only guy that could potentially beat me and because of that, I’m a competitor, and I was young and I was immature. He had his ways and I had my ways and we kind of clashed a little bit. I don’t know if that was all in my head or not but that was a long, long time ago.
“We fought. It was a very close fight. It was 2007, almost 20 years ago, but since then I’ve wished him nothing but the best. And then when I heard that—and we’ve shared a few tweets back and forth over the years, all nice and polite—when I heard that, I was just overjoyed.”
Bisping and Hamill fought at UFC 75 in September 2007, and after an ultra-competitive 15 minutes, Bisping improved his record to 14-0 by earning a split decision nod.
The 45-year-old Bisping went on to compete 25 more times inside the octagon, including his incredible crowning achievement moment at UFC 199 when he knocked out Luke Rockhold on short notice to win the middleweight title. Hamill competed 11 more times in the promotion, including victories over Tito Ortiz, Keith Jardine, and his disqualification win over current heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
Seeing Hamill have such a breakthrough with his hearing has Bisping—in a joking way—wondering what kind of life-changing moment he could have.
“It’s incredible what technology is doing these days,” Bisping said. “I know there’s talks about new eyes and things like that, you never know. Elon Musk, shoot me one of those new eyes and I’ll be back in the octagon before you know it.
But for Matt Hamill, what a beautiful day. I mean when I heard [that he] heard the sound of his children and his parents and just things like that, these are things that we take for granted. I can only imagine how that must have felt for him, and I could genuinely not be happier for him.”
