Daniel Cormier Discusses Only Way He’ll Fight Stipe Miocic Again
UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is at least willing to entertain the idea of fighting former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic again but there’s one catch and it’s a big one.
Cormier scored a KO win over Miocic to win the UFC heavyweight title in the main event of the UFC 226 pay-per-view event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, which marks history as Cormier is now a two-division champion, and is expected to fight former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in January.
Cormier called the fights at the UFC 227 pay-per-view event where after the event had ended, he talked with Joe Rogan and Jon Anik where he pitched the case that Demetrious Johnson should get a third fight against Henry Cejudo, who beat him to win the UFC flyweight title in the co-main event due to him being a longstanding champion.
“I love Henry and I love his idea that he wants to be a two-weight champ,” Cormier said (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “Cool thing to do now. But if anybody deserves a rematch, it’s Demetrious Johnson. Come on, he lost a split decision after 11 title defenses. If Demetrious Johnson doesn’t get a rematch, there is no hope for any of us in the entire world, because that means that nothing you could ever do will warrant getting an immediate title shot [rematch].”
This is when Rogan brought up the difference between Johnson not getting an immediate rematch and Cormier passing over a Miocic rematch in favor of fighting Lesnar due to the fact that Miocic made history himself at heavyweight by defending the title more than twice.
“[Miocic] should [get a rematch], but he went three [defenses]. Three is a lot different than 11,” Cormier said. “And also, if Brock Lesnar was staring at Stipe, that would happen, but I’ll tell you this right now, I’ll tell you this on record: If Brock Lesnar doesn’t make it to the fight for any reason, I’ll fight Stipe again. That is not a problem.
“There is no reason I wouldn’t fight Stipe. I’m only fighting Brock because I’m fighting Brock. But if he doesn’t make it, I’ll fight Stipe again. There you go.”
Cormier has already gone on record by stating that he will retire in March of 2019 and with Lesnar’s issues with USADA in the past, it will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.
