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“The chance to see me go out on top would be a fairy tale. I believe I can.”
There’s no way Daniel Cormier is retiring without avenging his TKO loss to Stipe Miocic at UFC 241.
Speaking to MMA Fighting in a recent interview, the 41-year-old MMA veteran said it would be a ‘fairy tale’ ending to retire ‘on top’ with the UFC heavyweight title back in his possession.
“I believe I can [walk away],” Cormier, who is tied 1-1 with Miocic, said. “It will be the hardest thing I’ll have to do but I believe I can and I think it will make everybody pretty happy in terms of my household, my wife and my kids. As much as they love watching me compete, the chance to see me go out on top would be a fairy tale. I believe I can.
“I’m probably one of the most competitive people you’ve ever met and that’s always going to tug at me. But I will have to put that focus to something else. I’ll have to work on my craft in front of the television in order to make up for that.”
Cormier is confident the trilogy bout will happen in the summer after the coronavirus emergency is over and the world economy is back on track.
“If we’re not able to get back to work until the summer, that kind of falls in line with what I was thinking or what the organization and Stipe were thinking for our fight time,” Cormier said. “The reality is it wouldn’t really affect us in the sense of us not being able to train like we can’t right now.
“As we got closer to the fight, we’d be able to get right back on schedule. Because the fight date was so far away, honestly, it doesn’t really affect us all that much.
“I believe [the trilogy] will happen,” he added. “Not exactly sure when but I do believe it will happen.”
To read the rest of the interview, where ‘DC’ discusses Miocic’s firefighting amongst other things, click here.