Bisping responds to Jacare: 'If you're not happy, go teach f---ing jiu-jitsu'

Michael Bisping isn't quite taken with Ronaldo Souza's darker side.

"The Count" has earned himself a staunch detractor in Souza during his reign as UFC middleweight champion, with "Jacare" essentially condemning him as the bane of the division for purportedly depriving its top contenders of their deserved title shots.

Souza recently doubled down, and is banking on Bisping's upcoming title defense against the returning Georges St-Pierre ending in an uber-rare double knockout. The Brazilian's comments reached Bisping's ears, and elicited an empathetic, yet pointed response from the champ on his "Believe You Me" podcast.

"Well first and foremost, 'Jacare' come on, my friend, that’s a very, very nasty thing to say. I thought you were all about love and God and this and niceness and spreading the beauty of jiu-jitsu and all this shit but yet you call for us both to get knocked out? That’s not very Christian is it?" Bisping said, according to FOX Sports' Damon Martin.

"Listen, I understand his frustration, of course. But the fact of the matter is he did lose to Yoel Romero. So he’s only won two fights since then. So he’s really got no one to be mad at but himself. He lost around a year ago so it is what it is. Yoel’s ahead of him when this fight happens."

Jacare sits two spots below the top-ranked Romero - who'd been expected to challenge Bisping before GSP ended his hiatus earlier this year, and subsequently opted to bide his time until his number is called.

Since dropping a close split decision to the Cuban - his only loss in the Octagon - at UFC 194, Souza has dispatched Vitor Belfort and Tim Boetsch in under a round each and signed on to face the surging Robert Whittaker at UFC on FOX 24 on April 15. The Brazilian has admitted he's not one to remain idle, but is willing to give up fighting and take up teaching should his exploits continue to go unacknowledged.

Bisping, for one, thinks Souza would make a fine sensei, and if his fixation on the title refuses to loosen its grip, suggests he might as well hang up his gloves now and get his dojo off the ground.

"He’s saying he can leave the UFC and go teach? Maybe he can," Bisping said. "If you look at 'Jacare,' I’m assuming what he’s going to teach is jiu-jitsu. Now, of course, he was one of the best jiu-jitsu practitioners in the world when he switched to MMA and he’s very famous in the jiu-jitsu world, multiple time world champion, I’m not really sure what his accolades are but highly, highly respected. So he said in the article 'if I get 400 students, you do the math.' I mean I don’t know if you could get 400 students. That’s a lot of students to have but maybe he could.

"If you don’t want to fight, don’t fight. No one’s got a gun to your head 'Jacare.' If you want to fight, stick around, if not, go and teach fucking jiu-jitsu. I couldn’t care less. Stop obsessing over me and my title because it is my fucking title. I knocked out (Luke) Rockhold, which you couldn’t do, and became champion. So deal with it. If you’re not happy, go teach fucking jiu-jitsu."