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UFC Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier vs Stipe Miocic
Prediction – People have the wrong idea when it comes to Daniel Cormier. They make the bad mistake of thinking he is a light heavyweight trying to be a heavyweight. What these naive people don’t realize is that it is the exact opposite.
His first 13 wins, and 15 of his 22 career wins have come at heavyweight. That is his natural weight and where he performs the best at. At heavyweight, he has defeated Antonio Silva, Derrick Lewis, Stipe Miocic, Josh Barnett, Frank Mir and Roy Nelson to name a few.
His resume at light heavyweight is every bit as impressive, with wins over Dan Henderson, Anthony Rumble Johnson twice, Anderson Silva and Alexander Gustafsson to name a few. Look at what he did as an amateur on the wrestling matts, and this man may go down as the greatest MMA athlete of all time.
The stigma is that “he never beat Jon Jones”. Well I’m sorry, but who has? Will he defeat Miocic again and retire on top? Time will tell, but he won’t be able to do it like he did the first time, he will need to take Miocic down and grind out a five-round decision.
Miocic is too good to stand there and get knocked out again. No one saw that coming the first time, not even Cormier. It led to DC’s downfall the second time after dominating the early rounds.
I’ll never forget covering Stipe Miocic cageside at NAAFS Fight Night in the Flats 7. Sitting there watching him take apart Bobby Brents with one leg kick after another. I knew that night that it would only be a matter of time before he was a future UFC champion. He was that good and the absolute total package.
He could kick, he could punch, he could wrestle, he could do it all! His UFC stint began shortly after and he continued to look every bit as impressive.
Piling up the wins at a rapid pace before eventually earning a title shot at Fabricio Werdumn at UFC 198 in May of 2016. Taking full advantage, winning by knockout in the very first round.
For Miocic, going into the first Cormier fight, he was 18-2 with impressive knockouts of Mark Hunt, Andrei Arlovski, Alistair Overreem and JDS to name just a few of them.
That is what made it so puzzling when he chose to grapple with a world class wrestler like Cormier before getting knocked out. Say what you want about the poke in the eye, but it had nothing to do with it. Miocic left himself wide open and paid the price.
The second time around, he almost got stopped a few times as it was looking really bad but he showed his true champion grit by turning it around. In their last fight, Miocic showed why he is one of the greatest MMA heavyweights of all time. A true champion who can adjust on the fly and as tough as they come.
I predicted Cormier by decision the first time around, and he won by KO.
I predicted Cormier by decision the second time around and he lost.
This is shaping up to be a classic trilogy, but as you see in most, the guy who wins the first fight typically loses the next two. That will be the case again as I truly believe Stipe Mioic knocks DC into retirement with a brutal second round KO.
The rest of the card is broken down by the UFC on page two.
