Daniel Cormier is one step away from winning the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix and will face Josh Barnett in what will be the biggest fight of his career so far.
Who knows, with a win over Barnett and winning the Grand Prix, Cormier could be heading to the UFC and could shortly find himself facing AKA teammate and current UFC heavyweight champion, Cain Velasquez.
“I think for me, personally, the toughest fight out there is Cain because he can wrestle and he’s the best heavyweight in the world,” Cormier said in an interview with Yahoo! Sports’ Dave Meltzer. “He’s the most difficult fight for me or for anyone else. The other toughest is Barnett. I think he beats Lesnar, he beats [Shane] Carwin, I think he beats all those guys.”
Of course though, his toughest fight would mean putting aside the friendship in what could be his career defining moment.
Would Cormier want to fight his teammate? Or would he just make his own path in a different weight class?
“He’s a friend,” said Cormier. “I’ve trained him for all of his recent fights. I cornered him. We face each other every day in sparring.
“It’ll be a very difficult fight for us to do. It will have to be worth it to us financially. We share the same coaches and the same management team. We’d have to address this as a group, with [manager] Bob Cook, Javier. I don’t want to be just a good fighter. I want to be the best in the world. I could be in line for a championship but if it came down to us, I’d much rather go to 205,” said Cormier.
“That would eliminate a lot of things. We have a great thing going at AKA, to avoid a lot of negatives, to avoid people having to choose sides, I’d rather move to 205, maybe beat someone, and then face Jon Jones. I’d have to have that fight instead of Cain.”
Now of course, Cormier is a former U.S. Olympian and was expected to wrestle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he was also named team captain.
Unfortunately though, Cormier suffered kidney failure because of a weight cut to 211 pounds. That’s just six pounds over the light heavyweight division limit.
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