Daniel Cormier thinks 12-to-6 elbows should stay banned.
Earlier this year, the Association of Boxing Commissions unanimously voted to abolish the controversial rule disallowing 12-to-6 elbows from being used in mixed martial arts bouts. That along with a change to what constitutes a grounded opponent was met with widespread praise from the combat sports community.
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However, not everyone is happy with the change.
Recently, the UFC Hall of Famer shared his displeasure over the allowance of 12-to-6 elbows starting on November 1, believing that it leaves the door open for other unsavory tactics—like soccer kicks—to be unbanned.
“I don’t like that,” Cormier said on a recent episode of his Funky & The Champ podcast with Ben Askren. “I don’t like 12-to-6 elbows, and I don’t like soccer kicks. Here’s my thought: when I was fighting Rumble Johnson, you couldn’t [move the elbows straight down]. But you could do it with an arch, so I was able to cut Rumble with an arching elbow, but it came straight down…
“I just don’t want anything that makes fighting look like a street fight, that’s it. John McCain, before he passed, was against fighting because it was “human cockfighting.” They would show these videos of gang fights, people running around, and people on the ground. It starts to look like that again, and that’s not good man. The moment we start opening those rules again, it’s gonna be more and more and more, and ultimately we’ll get back to soccer kicks.”
Daniel Cormier Weighs in on Ongoing McGregor-Khabib Drama
During the same episode, Cormier lent his thoughts on the never-ending rivalry between former lightweight champions Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
After former U.S. President Donald Trump dubbed ‘The Eagle’ the all-time greatest UFC fighter, McGregor went off on both parties, calling Trump’s comments a “campaign-ending decision” while dubbing Nurmagomedov a “smelly fat mountain monkey from the inbred mountains of Dagestan.”
Weighing in on whether or not the two could ever bury the hatchet, Cormier remains skeptical but suggested that both men could potentially find catharsis through current lightweight titleholder Islam Makhachev.
“He just hates Khabib. He hates him… They are not letting it go,” Cormier said. “It’s deep-rooted, but it’s deep-rooted on both sides, honestly… [Khabib] doesn’t like this guy, bro. They don’t like each other. This is crazy. It really is. It’s deep. It’s very deep, but I think the closest thing you would get to a resolution in that is, again, Conor beating [Michael Chandler] and then earning a championship fight against Islam Makhachev, right?
“Then Khabib could probably try to find some comfort in that and Conor could try to actually find redemption in trying to beat the guy that became the guy, right? So, there’s stories there. I don’t know that it happens because Michael Chandler can’t seem to get a date”
Watch the full episode below:
