Phil Hawes has apologized to Daniel Cormier following a scuffle at UFC Austin.
This past Saturday, Phil Hawes took on Deron Winn in the second fight on the preliminary card. Hawes scored an impressive second-round finish by TKO with the sharp use of his elbows. After their middleweight clash was over, Hawes started an argument with Daniel Cormier alleging bias towards his teammate Winn.
Phil Hawes apologizes to Daniel Cormier for the heated exchange
Hawes was reeling off a hard first-round knockout loss to Chris Curtis last November. ‘No Hype’ put in an incredible performance that saw him outstrike Winn for as long as the fight lasted. He wobbled Winn on a number of occasions in the opening round. Although the fight could’ve been over in the first round, Herb Dean called a stop to the contest in the final minute of round two.
During the post-fight press conference for UFC Austin, Phil Hawes talked about his dominant performance, earning a bonus for his efforts, and the heated exchange with the former two-division champion. Hawes claimed that Cormier was biased toward Winn, his teammate, and had “picked the wrong pony” while ‘DC’ argued that he wasn’t playing favorites.
Phil Hawes apologized to Cormier at the media scrum and called him an inspiration, as transcribed by MMA Fighting.
“Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding on my behalf. ‘DC’ is such a role model to me, [he’s] a two-weight world champion, just a stellar dude. So it was just a miscommunication. Wrong place, wrong time.
“I apologize, ‘DC.’ Don’t beat me up.”
He made his way into the promotion through Dana White’s Contender Series. Hawes’ debut under the banner couldn’t have gone better as he knocked out Jacob Malkoun in just 18 seconds at UFC 254.
‘No Hype’ now boosts his record to 4-1 in the UFC and will be looking to match up against the higher-level competition.