Bisping's fury drives GiGi Canuto to 30-second TUF 34 finish as Team Bisping end losing start

GiGi Canuto gave Michael Bisping’s struggling TUF 34 team their first win of the season on Wednesday, finishing Team Cormier’s Anita Karim in under 30 seconds with a pair of body kicks that prompted referee Mike Beltran to wave off the contest.

The result came as a significant relief for Team Bisping, who had fallen to 0-2 after Daniel Cormier’s side won the season’s opening bantamweight and strawweight bouts. According to TUF 34 cast member Xavier Franklin, Bisping’s reaction to that losing start was intense enough to affect the entire camp — ordering hard sparring sessions even with fights potentially days away.

“They went on, like, hour rants,” Franklin told MMA Fighting. “Coach [Jason] Parillo was getting on our ass. We were all just looking at each other. But Bisping made a good point, I will not lie. We all told him we never spar on fight week, but he said, ‘Yes, OK. But you’ve also never been on The Ultimate Fighter.’ So then we were like, ‘Fair.’”

Franklin said the sessions quickly escalated beyond what the team had been told to expect. “They were like, ‘Everybody go light,’ but no, it was hard sparring. They were pushing us super hard, everybody’s getting banged up. I’m pretty sure some stuff happened where people got hurt, so then they realized, ‘Oh shit, maybe we need to tone back.’ We could have avoided this if you just kind of listened to us, but I understand — we’re his team, we’re down 0-2.”

When Canuto’s fight finally arrived, the finish was so swift that Franklin and his teammates were momentarily stunned. “The craziest, weirdest performance ever,” he said. “Everybody’s in the crowd like, ‘What just happened?’ She kicked her, she punched her a little bit and then kicked her again. We got back in the locker room, everybody was going crazy. Finally, we’re on the board.”

Franklin was candid about what another loss might have meant for the team’s morale. “If GiGi would have lost, I can only imagine how bad it would have been. The vibe would have been down, team chemistry would have been off.” Instead, Canuto’s dominant performance — she barely needed Bisping’s corner work — gave the squad a much-needed lift heading into the rest of the season.