Daniel Cormier Says Stipe Miocic Should Fight Again Before Potential Rematch
Miocic has demanded an immediate rematch for the gold, but DC wants him to fight first before getting a crack at the title.
“I understand where he’s coming from because I’ve been there with Jones twice and I’m like, ‘God, I know I can beat him if I can just get another opportunity to do it. I know I can beat him.’ And it burns at you and it eats at you, especially the way that he lost the fight. I get it,” Cormier said on The MMA Hour. “But I don’t have to really owe anything. I’ve said that before, I’ve said he deserves it. I’ve said that. He deserves a rematch if I don’t get to fight Brock. I’ve always stood by that. But you can’t just go, ‘Well, you owe it to me.’ I don’t want to sit here and talk bad about Stipe because I like Stipe. I think he’s a good guy. He’s a fantastic father. He’s a pillar of the community. He’s a great fighter. I think he’s great. But you can’t sit there and say, ‘He owes me.’ When I lost to Jones the first time, I thought, ‘Man, if I can just get another opportunity.’ I didn’t just sit and wait. I went right back to work at trying to re-earn the opportunity if they weren’t going to give it to me. I wasn’t the champion obviously, so the circumstances were different, but I right away scheduled a fight to try to get my way back to that fight and it’s almost like he hasn’t really taken that approach. That’s one of the things where I’m kind of like, what’s going on? Why hasn’t he fought yet still? Just go beat somebody up, then you can’t ignore it. He can go knock somebody out again and it’s like, ‘Well, you gotta fight him.’ Then the last memory of him in the Octagon is not him getting knocked out.”
Cormier has defended the gold once since defeating Miocic for it, which was a second round submission win over Derrick Lewis in the main event of UFC 230.
DC says that Miocic is on UFC President Dana White’s list for the champions final three professional MMA fights, but would be the first fighter ousted if the list were cut down to two.
“If we talk about Dana’s schedule of fights: he said Lesnar, Stipe, Jones,” Cormier said. “I guess that last one at 205 would probably be the best because I don’t want to be going down to 205 back up to heavyweight. It would be Lesnar, Miocic, and Jones if I had three fights. If I had three fights. If I had two, it may be Lesnar, back to 205 to fight Jones. But it’ll be on my terms.”
There is no word as to when either fighter will compete again, as Miocic has sat out since UFC 226 and Cormier is dealing with some nagging injuries.
