On a night full of knockout finishes, Daniel Cormier’s dominating unanimous-decision victory over Frank Mir fell a little flat for some fight fans.
Cormier made his UFC debut riding a wave of hype, and the expectation was that he’d tear through Mir like tissue paper, and when that didn’t happen, his performance was labeled lackluster.
“DC” was never in any trouble during the fight and didn’t allow Mir to get into a rhythm. Instead, he used his superior wrestling to muscle Mir against the cage and land a bevy of devastating shots.
In the fight, Cormier outstruck Mir by a ratio of nearly 2:1, according to FightMetric. Cormier made Mir, a former two-time heavyweight titleholder, look downright amateurish in a fight that could mark the end of his career.
Cormier is now 1-0 in the UFC and has a flawless 12-0 professional record. And even though Cormier was unable to finish Mir, he proved himself to be one of the most dangerous fighters that the heavyweight roster has to offer.
That’s a long way from where Cormier was a year-and-a-half ago when he stepped in as an injury replacement for Alistair Overeem against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in the semifinals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix.
Cormier shocked the world with a first-round TKO win that catapulted him from relative unknown to overnight sensation.
Since then, Cormier has become a shining beacon in a rather dull division that currently sports a roster of fewer than 30 active fighters.
Now he stands at the precipice of superstardom with the chance at making a title run in two different divisions. It still remains unclear whether the diminutive heavyweight will stay at 265 or make the drop down to light heavyweight.
However, given the fact that Cormier is 34, it is imperative that he make his move while he’s still in his prime. With that said, this list of potential matchups is comprised of the crème de le crème of both the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions.