Daniel Cormier and Phil Hawes got into a heated verbal altercation at UFC Austin.
Hawes earned an impressive second-round TKO win over Deron Winn in their middleweight contest on Saturday night.
Deron Winn became a bloody mess after receiving a series of increasingly damaging blows from Phil Hawes in UFC Austin’s second bout before referee Herb Dean intervened.
A stray elbow sent Winn wobbling to the fence at the 4:25 mark of the second round and Dean ended the fight. While the veteran of the American Kickboxing Academy protested the decision, his subsequent fall to the ground ultimately proved the decision.
Shortly afterwards, Hawes started mouthing off at Cormier who was getting ready to interview him after the fight.
“You picked the wrong pony!” Hawes shouted towards Cormier “Yeah, you dog. You know what I’m talking about. I’ll cool off and then next week you can fight me.”
Cormier was not pleased to be talked to in that manner and fired back as referee Herb Dean stepped in to make sure nothing got ugly.
“I don’t pick fights,” Cormier said in response. “Be respectful. You didn’t beat me. I don’t pick fights. … Look at what happened. Why would I want this fight? You can do it better than that, don’t do that.”
Hawes eventually cooled down and apologized.
You can watch the altercation below:
Daniel Cormier, Deron Winn Are Teammates
It should be noted that Cormier and Winn are not only teammates, but close friends as well.
That said, it’s not clear why Hawes decided to mouth off at Cormier. Unless he knows something that Cormier said about the fight, one can only imagine it’s due to the former two-weight champion’s relationship with Winn.
Cormier eventually composed himself and interviewed Hawes without any mention of the incident.
After losing to Chris Curtis in his last fight, Hawes is back in the win column and moves to 4-1 in octagons. Winn for the time being drops to 2-3 in the UFC.