Former UFC champion Michael Bisping is rejecting any claims of a "fixed fight" last Saturday night in Tampa, when social media star Jake Paul pulled off a sensational sixth round knockout of Tyron Woodley.

In a close fight that Paul (5-0, 4 KOs) was winning on the official cards, the unbeaten boxer landed a single right hand to put Woodley to sleep in face-first fashion.

The contest was a rematch of their August encounter, which saw Paul win an eight round split decision.

Paul has more than his fair share of critics - and some of them believe Woodley, a former UFC champion, took a dive in the fight.

Bisping believes those claims are absurd.

“It’s ridiculous! Anytime somebody gets beat, knocked out, something like that, these conspiracy theories start going around. There’s no way Tyron Woodley’s gonna do that. Secondly, I’ve seen enough knockouts to know when one is real. That looked f------ real. The fight wasn’t real. The fight was garbage, it was piss poor, it was sh!t, it was nonexistent. The best thing that happened to Jake Paul was him actually landing - it was just a solid shot. The kid can bang, simple as that. He’s a big, strong, young kid. Boom. That’s not a fix,” Bisping explained on his podcast.

“Listen, it was the saving grace, knockout power. That’s what people want to see. People want to see finishes. For whatever reason, it’s a bloodthirsty sport, it’s the finishes, that bit of violence at the end.... People, the masses at large, they want to see someone face down on the canvas and Saturday night, that’s what they got. They paid for what they wanted to see and they all left kind of happy.”

After that fight was over, Paul called out several more UFC fighters - including Jorge Masvidal, Nate Diaz, and Conor McGregor.

Outside of Masvidal, Bisping is not sure if any of them are capable of beating Paul, but he believes they would put up a better fight than Woodley.

“The problem with f------ Tyron Woodley, and I say this all the time, in a sport like boxing where all you’ve got to do is throw punches, he doesn’t throw f------ punches,” Bisping said.

“That’s a problem! That’s a problem. He doesn’t throw enough. Diaz would, McGregor would. They might lose but they’d f------ throw, they’d fight, they’d turn up.... Masvidal would beat him. Nate Diaz, will see what happens next year because that fight probably will happen.”