Daniel Cormier Responds To Donald Cerrone’s Criticism: ‘We’ll Have Words’

As a popular fan favorite, UFC welterweight Donald Cerrone’s words have an impact in the sport.

That’s why ‘Cowboy’ should have chosen them much more wisely when he used a homophobic slur to describe light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier’s safe, wrestling-centric victory over late replacement – and all-time great knockout striker – Anderson Silva on the main card of last Saturday’s UFC 200 from Las Vegas.

Cerrone quickly issued an apology for his verbal mistake, which has understandably been lambasted as less than sensitive by countless readers. But that doesn’t mean Cormier is willing to forgive and forget. In fact, the champion responded to “Cowboy’s” criticism during an appearance with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, noting that Cerrone simply needs to close his mouth:

“My reaction to Donald is shut up. Has he lost his mind?. I mean, what was this guy talking about? Donald Cerrone, who made you the person… on what ground does he stand on to be able to say something like that to someone like me?

“He can tell me stuff. If he had a problem with the way I performed, he could have told me in the back that day. ‘DC, it wasn’t a very good fight, man, I didn’t like it.’ But to do it publicly? Who are you?”

Cormier continued with his own criticism for Cerrone’s fights, picking on the fact that “Cowboy” has largely destroyed most of his UFC opposition until getting to a truly big fight only to have the tables turned:

“Are you the greatest fighter of all times? Are you the guy that went out there and got stopped in the first round by Anthony Pettis, that kick in the side and fell down? Are you the guy that got dominated by dos Anjos in the first round, where you just fell down?”

Following a no-win scenario when his rival Jon Jones was forced out of their title unification bout in the main event of UFC 200, Cormier did what he had to do to win against Silva, and while it wasn’t pretty, he admittedly wanted to finally get paid to fight after two scheduled rematches with Jones fell through (Cormier was forced out of their UFC 197 date with an injury).

It wasn’t his best performance by any stretch, yet ‘DC’ believes Cerrone, whom he claimed to have been nothing but nice to, doesn’t have the right to say what he did. The champ had plan to retaliate, as well:

“I’ve been nothing but a gentleman to that guy, and he just likes to talk,” he said. “Maybe he was drinking a little bit, I don’t know. But who is he to make that decision, and so rude about it? That’s a type of thing that’s upsetting.

“What are you doing? Who are you to say that you can say something like that? You beat a couple of guys and all of a sudden you walk around with that stupid cowboy hat… I’ll smack the side of your hat with that stupid hat. I’ll actually have Khabib do that for me. I’ll ask Khabib to smack his head.”

At the end of the day, Cormier reminded ‘Cowboy’ that in the sensitive times we live in, spouting insults like the one he used simply aren’t going to fly, and Cerrone needed to carry himself with class as a professional athlete representing the biggest MMA promotion. With that said, Cormier stood fast that he would not be disrespected like that, so the next time he saw Cerrone, they would have words:

“It’s very disappointing, especially under those circumstances, with everything that happened in Orlando and everything, he uses that word and those terms. Man, nobody is exempt from just being like…you have to have some class, man. Hey, Donald, this isn’t the wild wild west where you can walk around with your stupid cowboy boots and your hat and spitting tobacco and just talking crazy. You have to have respect and carry yourself with some class.

“You don’t disrespect me like that. At the end of the day, I’m a man. When I see him, we’ll have some words, and we’ll discuss it.”