As retirement looms after UFC 252, Daniel Cormier takes one last dance
Daniel Cormier enters the ring to fight Stipe Miocic for the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 241 at Honda Center on August 17, 2019 in Anaheim. Credit: Getty Images/Joe Scarnici
With 41 years of age, 25 professional mixed martial arts bouts, thousands of wrestling matches and two trips to the Olympics comes perspective for Daniel Cormier.
Cormier, a former two-division UFC champion, has made it clear that Saturday’s night heavyweight title fight against Stipe Miocic will be his last time stepping into the octagon as a competitor. Win or lose.
“The way I felt during this training camp, I understand that you just can’t extend it and extend it and extend it,” Cormier said during Thursday night’s UFC 252 news conference. “On Saturday, I’m the best in the world, but what if I’m not after Saturday? Great champions always have one good night, and then they tempt fate. I’m not willing to do that.”
Cormier’s status among the greats in the sport’s history is secure, regardless of the outcome of his third fight against Miocic. Cormier (22-2, 1 no contest) won the light heavyweight title in 2015 and defended it a total of three times (with one loss to Jon Jones shoehorned in that later was overturned because of a failed drug test by Jones). While reigning as the champ at 205 pounds, Cormier returned to the heavyweight division and knocked out Miocic to win that belt in 2018. He then defended the heavyweight title once before losing the rematch to Miocic in the summer of 2019.
Yes, you can say he never beat Jones to win the light heavyweight title, winning a vacant belt instead. That’s fine, and accurate. But that doesn’t diminish his run in the division, a weight class he joined to step aside for close friend, AKA teammate and former champion Cain Velasquez. Dozens of champions never successfully defend their belt. Cormier did it three times in one division and once in another.
Despite the two losses to Jones (one official, one technically ruled a no contest), their feud propelled the sport’s profile (and theirs) to new heights.
“My greatest rivalry in the history of the sport will be Jon Jones,” Cormier said. “It’s too big. I’ll never be able to escape what we had. We made so much money, we sold so many pay-per-views, we did so many things.”
That, however, is in the past, just as Cormier’s career will be in the late Las Vegas hours on Saturday night at the UFC Apex. But Cormier is not about to let this moment slip away. He said this fight against Miocic, the completion of a championship trilogy in which each fighter has taken the belt from the other fighter once before, will be his biggest moment in fighting, even if no fans will be in attendance and the bout takes place inside a small venue rather than a large arena filled with 20,000 people. With closure comes grandeur for championship-level athletes with decorated resumes and future places in their sport's Hall of Fame.
“It’s all about moments. The moment when you win your first title. The moment that you win both titles, and you’re sitting atop of the cage and the fan adulation,” Cormier said. “Those things are important, but this moment I believe will be bigger than any of them. You don’t get to bask in all the people screaming, but you get to fight in that environment in that cage, with a small amount of people. And they can hear the punches. We hit each other a lot last fight. Can you imagine what you’re going to hear Saturday night when we’re punching each other? It’s going to be fantastic.”
That’s not pre-fight hyperbole crafted to help sell some pay-per-views. This fight sells itself.
The UFC has been marketing it as the winner being considered the greatest heavyweight in the sport’s history. “There is no debate,” UFC president Dana White said.
OK, so maybe that one is pre-fight marketing to help sell some pay-per-views. But a case can be made for the winner being the UFC’s best heavyweight champion ever. Miocic (19-3) defended the title three consecutive times, the longest such streak in UFC heavyweight history. Cormier never lost at heavyweight until Miocic beat him last summer.
UFC 252 will be Cormier’s 10th consecutive championship fight, a run that includes names such as Anderson Silva, Alexander Gustafsson, Anthony Johnson, Miocic and, of course, Jones.
It’s been an impressive display of staying power for the Louisiana native and Oklahoma State alum.
“Most guys in my position, when they’re talking about being done, they’re on the prelims somewhere, or there for some young guy to beat and elevate themselves off their name,” Cormier said. “That’s not me. I’m fighting to be the best in the world. So Saturday when I win, I’m the best in the world, but you’ve got to be comfortable walking away as the best in the world, or eventually you’re going to end up on the prelims for somebody to beat you and build off of your name. It’s just the way the game works.”
Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.