Daniel Cormier is coming off a super fight series against Stipe Miocic. The three wars he shared with Miocic were held once each year from 2018 to 2020. The trilogy would take so much out of the champions, leaving pieces of themselves inside the Octagon. This would go on to impact Miocic in his return against Francis Ngannou at UFC 260, says Cormier.
After retiring Cormier at UFC 252 last August, Miocic would heal up and recover. He would spend the next seven months reigning as ‘The Baddest Man On The Planet’, that is, until he met the powerful Francis Ngannou a second time.
Repeat Turns Into Revenge
Miocic unfortunately couldn’t find the formula to replicate his success from UFC 220, where he dominated Ngannou. Xtreme Couture’s new and improved Cameroonian would clash with Miocic like never before.
Ngannou had an answer for Miocic’s wrestling, defending his takedowns and getting some of his own. The wrecking machine would maintain a calm and composed approach to the fight, crushing his opposition one punch at a time. “The Predator” would end his hunt with a huge KO win early into the second round to become the new UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world.
Miocic, batter and bruised has an uncertain future in the division after being knocked out cold.
Battle Damage
Many have theorized the engaging wars with former champ-champ Daniel Cormier had something to do with the result. Ariel Helwani would ask DC if he agreed with this discussion. Cormier would give his thoughts on the matter in the latest episode of DC & Helwani.
“I was done do for the first time.” Cormier thought after losing to Miocic last summer. “I said, you know what? I go, ‘he’ll probably lose his next fight’ because I know when I left the octagon on August 15th, whether I had won or if I had lost, I was done. I could tell he had taken a lot out of me. I could just feel it. I can feel that I wasn’t the same person. You don’t do what we did to each other and not have long-term effects, especially when you come back only about eight (seven) months afterwards, right?
224 days is the amount of time that Miocic had between each heavyweight war. DC thinks the scars endured would come back to haunt him, especially because the Miocic extinguished the thought of waiting a complete year for his next fire-fight.
“When he lost to me, Francis had hit him all those times in January and I knocked him out in July. Then, we got a whole year for him to recover. And then a whole another year. Just a little over seven months and [Miocic] is back [against Ngannou].
War’s Toll
“We took some big shots in that third fight.” Cormier continued. “I hit him with some big shots. The first round I almost knocked him down. Like we were punching each other really hard. I knew I was done after those three fights because I knew how much he had taken out of me. I know that we took a lot out of each other. We beat the crap out of each other for 10 rounds. Stipe was on the receiving end of a lot of that. From the first fight, getting knocked out by me, beating him for the vast majority of the second fight.
“Even in the third fight, hitting him with all the shots. It was just a very hard rivalry and it does take something out of you. I knew he had taken that out of the durability, my chin didn’t feel as sturdy after those fights, my vision… everything just seemed a little bit less than. I believe Stipe is dealing with some effects of that too.
“The reality is this. He got hit with a jab by Francis that knocked him off. He might’ve expected the right hand. He would get hit with it. He would deal with it, which Francis threw that right-hand and that shovel jab, it knocked him down. It was something that he didn’t expect. It was just something different. So I do believe that. I said this way back in September, I said he would probably lose his next fight because you just know the effects it takes on you when you’re in one of those all-time rivalries like that.”
Do you agree with Daniel Cormier? And would the result of the rematch be different had Miocic not gone threw the trenches of the enduring trilogy?
