Ultimate Fighting: Three minutes into the fight, my face spewed blood like a broken hosepipe

Ten seconds after we met, Michael Bisping planted his fist firmly onto my mouth. He followed with a left to the ribs and a couple of shots on the chin, before going to work on my bleeding nose. Three minutes later, my face was spewing blood like a broken hosepipe.

That, at least, is what my notebook records of 10 April last year, when I was dispatched to the outskirts of Liverpool to meet, interview and "spar" with Mr Bisping, a then-undefeated star of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world's biggest cage fighting franchise.

I can't actually remember many details of the single round we spent inside the "cage," an octagonal pen lined with plastic mesh netting. That's probably thanks to the minor concussion I suffered. But it was by all accounts an uneven match-up, and I'm fairly sure I failed to land a single shot.