Throughout his MMA career, Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix champion Daniel Cormier has avoided trash talk for the most part.
The former Olympian is considered to be one of the friendliest and most well-spoken competitors outside the cage, and is generally regarded as a fighter who lets his actions speak louder than words when it comes to any pre-fight banter with an opponent.
Recently, however, Cormier had a hard time ignoring some comments made by Frank Mir, his next opponent at UFC on Fox 7.
In a recent interview, Mir said that he was surprised at Cormier not being able to put away an opponent outside of a referee just putting a stop to the fight and stated, “he wasn’t able to put the guy away through a lack of finishing abilities, through a lack of finishing moves.”
He added more insult to injury when speaking about Cormier‘s performance against Josh Barnett, which ended in a unanimous decision, saying that the eventual Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix winner “doesn’t really have much finishing ability.”
Needless to say, despite his friendly demeanor, Cormier took exception to the comments, but also knows that part of fighting Mir is learning to listen to him talk about his opponents even after he’s been beaten by them.
“Frank’s being Frank,” Cormier told Bleacher Report. “There are select few people in this world that can be in a situation that’s supposed to humble you and it just doesn’t happen. I think that’s happened time and time again with Frank. He’s talked about Brock (Lesnar) and he got beat up by Brock, and he still talks bad about Brock. Case one, Frank should have been humbled by the beating Brock put on him, but it didn’t work.”
“Case two, talked about Shane Carwin and Shane Carwin finished him, still didn’t humble him. Talked about Junior Dos Santos after Junior Dos Santos beat him up. So there are a select few people in this world that when you’re in a situation that’s supposed to humble you, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. Frank Mir’s one of those guys.”
As far as breaking down Mir’s assessment of his skills, on paper it doesn’t really hold water considering Cormier has won eight of his 11 pro fights by TKO or submission with only three fights making it to the judges’ scorecards.
Mir will get the chance firsthand on April 20 to see how Cormier can fight in the cage, but he’s got a warning to issue for the former UFC heavyweight champion.
“To the point of me not being a guy that can finish fights, I’m going to tell you right now and this is 100 percent true—Frank Mir says I can’t finish fights? Okay that’s fine,” Cromier said. “My intention in this fight is not to finish Frank Mir. I’m going beat up on Frank Mir for 15 minutes and I’m going to make him stay in that cage with me.”
“If Frank Mir gets finished, it will be because he quit.”
Cormier wants to leave no doubt in Mir’s mind that if this fight ends it’s because the former UFC champion couldn’t take anymore, taps out and asks for it to be over.
“We’ve all seen some of his fights where we’re like ‘what exactly happened there?’. Know that in this one, if he gets finished it will be because he quits,” Cormier stated. “I’m going to make him check out of that fight, I’m not going to do it for him. I’m not going to do it for him. When he wants out of the fight, he’ll get out of the fight.”
“So watch the fight on April 20. If Frank Mir gets finished it’s because he checked out.”
Now for as fired up as Cormier seems to be about Mir’s comments as encapsulated by his response, he’s not going to get goaded into a fight that doesn’t make sense for him. Cormier is smart enough to know his strong suit and what Mir does well in the cage, and he’s not going to become some risk-taking fighter just to prove a point.
“I’m not going to go in there and put myself at risk because Frank Mir is talking trash about me or because Frank Mir doesn’t really respect me,” said Cormier. “At the end of all if it, it’s easy to see what Frank said and the only thing I take away from it is that he honestly just doesn’t think I’m very good and doesn’t respect my skills or many of the things I’ve accomplished in my life. That’s the biggest mistake anyone could make in a competitive situation.”
Cormier hopes to make Mir pay for his disrespect when they meet as the co-main event at UFC on Fox 7 on April 20 in San Jose.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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