Michael Bisping turns down BBC SPOTY invite after being snubbed for the shortlist

MICHAEL Bisping won’t be attending the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award show after turning down an invitation to attend the gala event.

Bisping has had the best ever year by a British MMA fighter, defeating two legends of the sport either side of becoming the first British UFC world champion.

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Bisping’s stellar year saw him take on all-time great Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva in March at The O2 Arena in London.

And ‘The Count’ produced a performance of patience and guts as he overcame a huge flying knee from the pound-for-pound great to register a unanimous decision victory.

That win kept him in contention at the top of the UFC’s 185lb middleweight division and, after Chris Weidman pulled out of his UFC 199 title rematch with champion Luke Rockhold, Bisping received the call.

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The Brit was in Toronto having just wrapped filming on the movie xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.

But with less than two weeks’ notice Bisping flew down to Los Angeles to accept a last-gasp rematch with Rockhold and promptly knocked out the champion in just over three minutes to shock the MMA world and become Britain’s first ever UFC world champion.

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Golden year: Michael Bisping has experienced an Indian summer to his UFC career[/caption]

Bisping then returned home to take on the man who had so brutally knocked him out at UFC 100 in 2009, Dan Henderson, in an eagerly-anticipated rematch.

Despite the fight being held in the early hours of the morning to accommodate the US pay-per-view market, tickets for the event at the Manchester Arena sold out in just SIX MINUTES as the nation’s fight fans piled in to secure their seats for Bisping’s historic championship homecoming.

And the British star produced another gutsy come-from-behind performance, surviving two huge knockdowns early in the contest to outpoint Henderson and retain his world title on an electric night in Manchester.

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On top of the world: Michael Bisping is the undisputed UFC middleweight champion of the world[/caption]

Chatting to SunSport after winning the title, Bisping said he'd it would mean the world for him to be nominated.

But despite the Brit’s history-making year and the huge fan reaction to his successes, the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year voting panel snubbed the UFC star’s achievements, leaving him off the 16-strong shortlist for the 2016 award.

And Bisping revealed in a tweet that he’d been invited to attend the event, but declined.

“Thanks 4 the invite #bbcsportspersonalityawards,” he wrote.

“But until U recognize the hard work myself and my fellow fighters put in, I won’t be there!"