Daniel Cormier earned the 22nd win of his mixed martial arts career last weekend, defeating Derrick Lewis by submission inside Madison Square Garden to defend his UFC heavyweight championship — but the man he dethroned to earn the belt wasn’t exactly impressed by what he saw.
Stipe Miocic, who was beaten inside the first round by Cormier at UFC 226 in July, had angled to be the fighter opposite ‘DC’ in the cage last Saturday. While that didn’t come to fruition, Miocic claims he wasn’t impressed with what he saw in the cage.
“Yeah I saw the fight. I saw ‘DC’ beat a guy with a bunch of Instagram followers, with one hand,” Miocic said via Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show via ESPN.
“I offered myself to fight ‘DC’ on that card and he said no. They told me that he wasn’t available and literally a week later, he is fighting Lewis. It was annoying (watching the fight), it should be me,” he added. “There’s a ton of guys who never defend the belt and they get title shot rematches. I defended it three times, did it as favor for a super fight and I don’t get a rematch?”
Miocic’s status as the most successful heavyweight champion in UFC history had looked, on paper at least, as a convincing argument to have him get a rematch as swiftly as reasonably possible but with Cormier set to defend his belt against Brock Lesnar in the new year, and Cormier insisting that he will retire by the end of March 2019, it stands to reason that the two will never stand in the same cage ever again.
Cormier, though, sees it as unfinished business.
“I mean, it’s not like he was beating me the whole fight. I was winning that fight and he caught me with a shot,” he added. “It’s not good enough. You think I was in great shape? 100-percent (he would’ve fought.) I want my belt back, that is my belt.”