Daniel Cormier thinks the UFC could be heading toward a heavyweight fight people would actually lose their minds over. Looking at Gable Steveson’s upside and Josh Hokit’s fast rise, Cormier said the matchup has the ingredients to become a title fight down the road.
Cormier started with Steveson and made it clear how high he is on the Olympic gold medalist.
“Gable Steveson’s tremendous,” Cormier said. “He’s an Olympic gold medalist. NCAA champion. His ceiling is world champion. His talent, his ability, his mindset – he can do it all.” He also said he is watching to see “how quickly he rises” because “when you have a skillset like that it happens fast.”
That is where Josh Hokit entered the conversation. Cormier said:
“That’s what we’re seeing right now with Josh Hokit. Josh Hokit fought two fights and then he beat the No. 4 guy in the world in Curtis Blaydes. Now he’s one of the top five heavyweights in the world. I imagine Gable Steveson’s path will be something similar to that. Fight a couple guys, get somebody better.”
Hokit’s stock already exploded after the Blaydes win and his White House booking, while Steveson is still carrying the kind of amateur résumé that makes people expect a fast jump before he has even made his UFC debut.
Daniel Cormier thinks UFC has a ready-made heavyweight storyline
Cormier then laid out the bigger picture and why this matchup works as more than a wrestling fantasy:
“We’ve been dying for the America wrestler in the heavier weight classes since a lot of us retired recently. Now we have them. Hokit’s an All-American. Steveson’s a champion. What a storyline that would be. Could you imagine Gable Steveson, the All-American world champion, then Josh Hokit, the bad guy, fighting for a UFC title? That would be f*cking cinema. It would be cinema.”
He is not just sold on the skill sets. He also thinks Hokit’s polarizing act works. Cormier said:
“He can be a bit much, but when you fight like that you start to turn it a little bit. It’s classic. He has to accept, and I think he has, that a lot of people are going to hate him. If he’s OK with that, that’s fine. Because the one thing you can’t have is indifference.”
If Steveson hits the UFC the way Cormier expects, this matchup will not need much help. Heavyweight has needed fresh blood for a while, and Hokit already has real momentum after forcing people to take him seriously. If Steveson debuts strong, the UFC could end up with exactly the kind of all-American heavyweight title fight Cormier is talking about.
