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Daniel Cormier compares two hypothetical “super-fights.”
For better or for worse, “super-fights” are a common trend in MMA today. Just these past weeks, two matchups that many billed as such have been making the rounds online.
On one hand, you’ve got the heavyweight clash between Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou, a matchup that never had legs as far as Dana White is concerned. On the other, you’ve got Anderson Silva challenging Conor McGregor to a very precise 176.37-pound catchweight, which “The Notorious” already accepted.
Both are attractive pairings that would catch a fight fan’s attention, but for former two-division champion Daniel Cormier, Silva-McGregor has more drawing power.
“It’s a bigger fight than Ngannou vs. Jones,” Cormier recently told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani (transcript by BJPenn.com). “Not competitively, or it doesn’t look competitively on paper but when you put that name, Anderson Silva across from Conor McGregor, that fight is going to sell more pay-per-views than Ngannou vs. Jones.”
While debating whether Anderson Silva is a viable option for Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier argues the fight would be bigger than Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou.
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Since his win over Donald Cerrone in January, McGregor opened himself up to several possibilities at welterweight. At the same time, his name is still in the mix at 155 pounds.
And because there will be that argument of whether or not McGregor deserves such fights, Cormier sees the Silva bout as the next best option.
“If everybody else is matched up, why not?” he said. “Here’s the deal, people all want to have a problem with everything. First off, Conor vs. Khabib, he doesn’t deserve a title fight he needs to fight Justin [Gaethje]. Okay, don’t let him fight Justin because Justin deserves a title fight. So now he is on the outside of 155, sure.
“He wants to go to 170, oh he doesn’t deserve a title fight against Usman. We don’t want to see him fight Masvidal because it’s a bad matchup and Masvidal needs to fight Usman. Okay, so he is out. Diaz? Oh, no we are not interested in the Diaz fight, so he is on an island he is out. Let him fight Anderson Silva, why does it matter.
“If everybody has a problem with everything and you don’t want him in a meaningful fight, you don’t think he has done enough to re-earn a title fight, let him fight Anderson Silva,” Cormier continied. “That’s fine, I’ll watch it 100 percent.
“It’s funky of course because Anderson has been so big for so long. But, hey if that’s where he would have to go to get a big fight, and it would be a big fight.”
Silva, now 45 years old and at the tail-end of his career, still does have the name value despite being winless since 2017. He last fought at UFC 237 in May 2019 where he lost to Jared Cannonier via first-round TKO.