Cormier is pushing to have all steroid cheats knocked down several pegs in the mind of MMA fans.
There hasn’t been a lot of dramatic fireworks between Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic leading up to their big champion vs. champion fight at UFC 226 on July 7th. Fortunately for the UFC, Cormier is still making a lot of headlines due to another round of feuding with Jon Jones.
Jones started things by laughing off a UFC social media account that asked if Cormier could be considered G.O.A.T. (Greatest of all Time for you newbs). Cormier responded by suggesting Jon Jones was on par with Lance Armstrong due to all his drug test woes, declaring his entire career was suspect and therefore very non-GOAT worthy.
Now Cormier is widening his circle of GOAT-exclusion to include Anderson Silva as well.
“Any time a guy does performance enhancing drugs and on multiple occasions, they eliminate themselves,” Cormier said during a UFC 226 media conference call (via MMAWeekly’s Damon Martin). “So for as great as Anderson Silva was, he tested positive I think two times. Jones has tested positive two or three times. Those guys eliminate themselves.”
“When you start getting performance enhancers tied to your name, there’s no way around that. There’s no way around it, and I think that of all the sports, the people that pay the harshest price are the baseball players. Because when you have negatives tied to your name, they deny you the ultimate vindication. The ultimate goal of a baseball player is to go to the Hall of Fame and these guys aren’t even getting close.
“The Mark McGwires, the Sammy Sosas, the Barry Bondses, those guys aren’t getting close because they have those bad things tied to their names. As a sport, I think MMA needs to evolve to the point that the punishment for having doing those things is your place within the sport should be challenged and should be questioned.”
But back to the original question: does Cormier think he should be considered GOAT material if he wins next Saturday?
”I should be in the conversation,” Cormier said. “I want to be mentioned among the greats. The Georges St-Pierres and the Demetrious Johnsons, the guys that have done things the correct way over the course of their entire careers without that asterisk.”