Now that Brock Lesnar has been removed from the heavyweight title conversation, thanks to the restrictive new deal UFC signed with ESPN+, reigning 265-pound kingpin, Daniel Cormier, will move on to rematch former champion, Stipe Miocic, at UFC 241 in August.
It was a contest Miocic lobbied for just as soon as he went down in flames at UFC 226 last July. Partly because losing sucks, but mostly because he was salty that UFC bumped him for the returning Lesnar, then Derrick Lewis when UFC 230 was in shambles.
That’s what happens when your fight isn’t close and you make no money.
“I did not like the approach he took,” Cormier told Ariel Helwani (via MMA News). “I just think he’s so good, even if he’d fought over the course of the year, he still would be in this same position. So I don’t feel I have to be nice to him anymore. The whole time I said he was a bit entitled. These are conversations we had with the company. He was just as happy as I was. So to make it seem like I was doing something wrong after I was the one who won the fight, I just felt like it was unfair. I’m not wronging this guy. I’m doing exactly what we were told to do after our first fight.”
Cormier has done everything the promotion has asked him to do since the first day he crossed over from the now-defunct ranks of Strikeforce. In fact, promotion president, Dana White, has often called him the greatest fighter to ever compete in UFC.
If anyone earned a retirement payday against Lesnar, it’s “DC.”
But like all things that seem too good to be true, Cormier will instead have to settle for reruns. Prior to hanging up the gloves at the end of the year, the former light heavyweight champion hopes to silence Miocic, then get one back from longtime rival, Jon Jones.
And if you thought he was done being nice to Stipe …