Michael Bisping admits he’s a fan of Jorge Masvidal and says it’s hard not to be.

There was a time when Bisping and Masvidal were far from chummy. Masvidal took issue with Bisping ripping the Cuban flag during his heated feud with Yoel Romero. Masvidal and Romero are teammates and friends. Bisping and Romero never fought and “The Count” and “Gamebred” would eventually start warming up to one another.

From enemy to fan, Bisping told MMAFighting.com‘s Damon Martin that things simply aligned for Masvidal and himself to allow cooler heads to prevail and gain mutual respect.

“When you meet somebody under different circumstances, like somebody who has been your enemy, if you met them in a different way you could be friends,” he said. “Like Luke Rockhold. I always said if Daniel Cormier can be such good friends with Luke Rockhold, he can’t be that bad of a guy. But we’re just rivals, so we’re not meant to like each other.

“But since then, [Jorge] has been awesome. How can you not be a fan of what he did last year? How can you not be a fan of what he did to Till, [Ben] Askren and then [Nate] Diaz. The way he’s handled himself the last year is just cool as f*ck. I wish him nothing but the best.”

Masvidal is riding a three-fight winning streak and captured the one-time-only BMF championship back in Nov. 2019. What’s next for Masvidal hasn’t been set in stone but he’s targeting Conor McGregor and UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.