Daniel Cormier’s light heavyweight debut will come against a FOX colleague of his.
Cormier will meet Rashad Evans in the five-round main event of UFC 170 on Feb. 22 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Evans announced the news on Friday’s UFC Fight Night 33 pre-fight show on FOX Sports 2, and Cormier also confirmed it to MMAFighting.com.
“It’s bittersweet for me,” Evans said. “That means that we’re both climbing the ranks, and we’re both in the upper echelon of competition, but at the same time, I don’t want to fight DC. DC and I go way back from college, so now we’re going to have to fight each other.
“He’s another fighter that I talk to almost all the time, and he’s a really good friend of mine, so it’s going to be hard. I’ve been sick over it for the last few days.”
Evans also added that he would have preferred fighting a little later in 2014, but it didn’t seem like he was given much of an option.
Interestingly enough, Evans broke the news on the FOX set while sitting next to Chael Sonnen, his most recent TV colleague opponent. Evans (19-3-1) defeated Sonnen at UFC 167 last month via first-round TKO to extend his winning streak to two fights in a row. Both Evans and Cormier have also worked together on FOX Sports’ pre and post-fight UFC shows.
Despite never losing in MMA, Cormier (13-0) said he would change weight classes because he didn’t want to fight his friend and training partner, UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez. The 34-year-old Cormier is 2-0 in the UFC, scoring unanimous decision wins over Frank Mir and Roy Nelson.