UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is scheduled to defend his title against Anthony Johnson next weekend at UFC 210, which will be a rematch between these two fighters. They originally fought in 2015 which saw Cormier survive an early knockdown to submit Johnson in the third round. According to the champ, this one might look a lot like their first encounter.
Cormier recently appeared on the Anik and Florian podcast to talk about the upcoming fight, and during the interview, Cormier said that Johnson is very dangerous early in the fight, but he fades after the first round.
“I have to be careful in the first seven minutes because the reality is, I’ve felt him over the course of 14 minutes now, and I know the difference in his power from minute one when he dropped me, to minute 13. So I can base that on experience. I felt him at minute 13 and granted, he’s still very powerful, but it isn’t that same explosive power that’s there in minute one, two, three, four, of the very first round. So I’ve really taken into account the beginning of the fight, being very aware, being ready to go from the start, and making sure I’m implementing my game plan from the first bell all the way until I finish the fight.”
The problem with Cormier’s plan is that Johnson hasn’t needed to make it past the seven-minute mark. After Johnson lost to Cormier, he has recorded three stoppage victories in a row over ranked light heavyweights, knocking out Glover Teixeira and Ryan Bader in the first round. He also knocked Jimi Manuwa 28 seconds into the second round for a combined cage time of 7:07. Despite Johnson’s recent run, Cormier believes that Johnson appears to be even more threatening than before, he has also been making improvements.
“I anticipate a much better version of the ‘Rumble’ I fought last time. A guy that’s worked on the areas that he’s struggled in and a guy that’s addressed them. A guy that’s coming in confident and is coming in trying to finish the fight. I feel like we have trained for a better version of him. I feel like we’ve covered all of our bases, dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s. We’ve worked so much in the areas we feel we struggled in last time, and even in the areas that we were successful, we still have to improve in every facet of our game.”
UFC 210 takes place on Saturday April 8th, in Buffalo, New York. You can listen to the interview here:
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