Daniel Cormier: Captain Of The Team (PHOENIX #1)

The story of Daniel Cormier and his brushes with greatness begins at Oklahoma State, where Cormier was a star Wrestler. Not far from his native Louisiana, Cormier transferred to Oklahoma his Junior Year in an effort to seek greater competition that a school like Oklahoma State can offer. The way Collegiate wrestling is broken up is by Divisions and by Conferences; the National Collegiate Athletic Association separates schools into different divisions based on a variety of factors - Size, Budget, Facilities and number of Athletic Scholarships, with the top of the list in these categories are put in Division 1, and will typically only compete with other Division 1 schools to create a more level playing field. Within the Division 1 schools, there are also collections of divisions that dictate which schools will compete against which rather than a full national competition field. This distinction might seem arbitrary, but here’s an example - from 2006 to 2011, both the University of Alabama and Alabama State University were given Division 1 classification, but in terms of revenue their respective programs brought in, University of Alabama brought in 124 million dollars while Alabama State was just 10 million, providing the University of Alabama to more easily pay top tier athletic staff, provide state of the art facilities and scout better high school prospects; Even though NCAA Divisions create more parity than nothing, the introduction of divisions groups programs of similar status with each other. Back to Cormier; Cormier started his collegiate wrestling career at Colby Community College in Kansas, which was part of an entirely different classification altogether as community colleges are exempt from NCAA consideration, so though Cormier went 61-0 in Colby and won two Junior College National Championships, he was not satisfied being the big fish in the small pond… but when he transferred to Oklahoma State, not only did he jump into the fires of Division 1 competition, not only did he jump into the fire of the Big 12, he jumped right into the path of Cael Sanderson.

To the average person, the name Cael Sanderson does not invoke feeling, but in the world of collegiate wrestling, Cael Sanderson is God given flesh. To this day, 20 years after graduation, those who know of him will speak of his career on the College wrestling mat with a reverence you won’t ever be able to shake. Sanderson’s collegiate wrestling career at Iowa State can only begin to be conveyed with his record - 159-0. Compare this to Cormier 61-0 at Colby Community College, and it doesn’t seem that wild, right? Cormier had 2 years, Sanderson had more than double that, seems completely regular… but Sanderson wasn’t wrestling at a Junior or Community college, he was wrestling in the NCAA Division 1 level and he never lost a match. Sanderson won 4 Straight Division 1 Championships and 4 straight Big 12 Championships. He won the Dan Hodge trophy, essentially the equivalent to College Football’s Heisman Trophy, in 3 consecutive years, the first person to ever win it more than once and the only person to this day to win it 3 times. Suffice it to say, Cael Sanderson made life hard for any Division 1 Wrestler in his weight class; especially those in the Big 12, the division that Iowa State occupies… and it was the division that Cormier was transferring to by joining Oklahoma State in 2000. To be clear; Cormier did not stumble upon Cael Sanderson’s unprecedented run of greatness - While Sanderson hadn’t won his first Dan Hodge Trophy, he had won the 1999 Division 1 and Big 12 Championships. He was the first freshman in NCAA History to be named the Outstanding Wrestler in the Division 1 tournament; Sanderson was not a mystery and Cormier likely thought that he could meet Sanderson on equal footing as nobody could possibly know what Sanderson was going to become. In 2000, Cormier entered the national tournament as the #3 seed, behind Sanderson and West Virginia’s Vertus Jones. Expected to place highly, Cormier disappointed early, placing outside of the top 8 that would classify him as an All American while Sanderson went on to sweep, beating #2 Vertus Jones in the finals to win his second straight Championship. In the 2001 season, a refocused Cormier went on a warpath to the finals of the NCAA Championship, where he would meet Cael Sanderson and get Silver as Sanderson won his 3rd straight championship. Cormier ended his NCAA Division 1 Wrestling Career with a 53-10 record - Cael Sanderson accounted for 6 of his losses. It’s the story that a lot of great wrestlers experienced during Sanderson’s run - Cormier’s teammate, Michigan’s Andy Hrovat got 8th in the 1999 Championships because he met Sanderson, Nebraska’s Brad Vering got 3rd in 1999 after being pinned by Sanderson, moved to 197 and won the Championship in 2000, beating Cormier’s teammate Mark Munoz, another victim of Sanderson’s in 1999 who left the division for better success as well. Cormier stuck to his guns after 2000, staying at 184 because he could do better than he had, and while he would become an All American and would fight his way from 9th to 2nd - there’s just no getting around it; Daniel Cormier had to beat the greatest Collegiate Wrestler there’s ever been in order to be the champion, and he wasn’t able to do it - nobody was.

After College, Cormier transitioned into a great world level Freestyle wrestler - 2003 US National Champion, 2002 and 2003 Pan American Champion - He actually did better than Sanderson at the 2003 Pan Ams as Sanderson got Bronze at 84 kilos while Cormier won at 96. Cormier and Sanderson, two of the greats in United States Wrestling, were both selected to compete at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens in Men’s Freestyle. This presented the opportunity for the two College rivals to showcase their greatness on the world stage and kind of prove who was better, at least to themselves. Sanderson, as expected, brought home gold; he had to overcome strong competition in Russia’s Sazhid Sazhidov, who had beaten him in the 2003 World Championship Finals. For Cormier’s part, he placed a disappointing 4th, being beaten before the medaling stage by Russia’s Khadzhimurat Gatsalov, who would go on to win the Gold Medal. 2004 is a turning point for Cormier’s wrestling career; he had won international competitions, he had made the Olympic team, the only roadblock for him seemed to be Gatsalov like it had been Sanderson in College. Like Sanderson, Gatsalov was not unknown, he had won the 2003 and 2004 European Championships, but, like Sanderson, Gatsalov was just getting started, and that spelled disaster for Daniel Cormier. Unlike Cael Sanderson in college, Gatsalov is not a God of unquestioned dominance, Cormier was not wading onto the mat to try and double leg a myth, but starting with 2004 Olympic Gold, Khadzhimurat Gatsalov would win the world championships at 96 kilos in Freestyle Wrestling in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Cormier would come up short in 05 and 06, placing 11th and 21st respectively, but in 2007, Cormier would make a run in the bracket only to lose at 3rd while seeing his Olympic better from years past win another World Title. Cormier may not have been the eternal 2nd place to wrestlers like Sanderson and Gatsalov during their dominance, but he has shown that he is consistently able to make it to this world level, and consistently, he has met a wall in the form of a dominant champion for the better part of a decade. What makes it worse is the compromise - During College, Cormier and Sanderson competed at 84 Kilos, but afterwards, even if Cormier wanted to continue at that weight, there was nobody in their right mind on Team USA Who would send Cormier to Athens in 2004 over Sanderson, so Cormier moved up to 96 kilos, he had good success, at this point he was winning the US Nationals year after year, unquestionably the best freestyle wrestler at his weight… but by moving up a weight class, he stepped right in front of Khadzimurat Gatsalov’s Gold Medal streak at the World level; Sure, Sanderson met Sazhidov at Worlds and 2000 Olympic Silver medalist at Pan Ams, but neither of them were dominant in their divisions like Gatsalov was - it was just Daniel Cormier, the best wrestler at 94 Kilos in the United States, running into a wall of resistance year after year, and even if he got through all them, he would meet Gatsalov.

2008 Could Change That. Of course it wasn’t known at the time, but Gatsalov would not be representing Russia at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, that spot being occupied by less notable Shirvani Muradov. Gone were the Cael Sandersons and the Rulon Gardners, the undeniable champions of the United States from years past - Daniel Cormier would lead the United States into the Olympic Games as the Captain Of The Team, the senior most wrestler who had been here before. The stage was set for Olympic Gold to return home with Cormier - No Gatsalov, No undeniable titans, the weight on a nation on his shoulders after a great performance in previous world championships. He was the best wrestler in America at his weight class, and while he might not be a runaway favorite, Daniel Cormier had this moment to prove he was a Gold Medal wrestler

On August 21st, 2008, it was reported that Daniel Cormier was dropping out of competition. After making weight for his match against Cuba’s Michel Batista, Cormier experienced kidney failure due to a traumatic weight cut. Years later, he would describe the feeling of losing to himself and not another wrestler as a nightmare you never truly wake from; that if he had lost to Batista, he at least lost to someone else, but that his own lack of discipline beating him is an enemy you can’t beat. You can’t train away that demon, you can’t put up a picture in the mirror and just focus. It’s a different level of shame in wrestling, to miss the Olympics, and it was a shame that Cormier has carried ever since. For a lot of people, Cormier says, I became a Pariah. No one wanted the guy who didn’t wrestle at the olympics heading up their program, so Cormier’s dream, the dream of every wrestler, was dead - he was an outcast in the world of wrestling. Just a few months after the Olympics, Cormier sold ads for a local tv station, and this could have easily been Cormier’s life; a former Olympian, the best in the nation at his weight, would fade into obscurity - maybe every couple years, people would remember him and ask “What ever happened to Daniel Cormier?”, and nobody would have an answer - nobody would know, because as Cormier said, nobody wants the guy who didn’t wrestle at the olympics… But that’s not what would come to pass. Cormier, now 30 years old, would be afforded a second shot.

Even before the olympics, Cormier had been badgered by Oklahoma wrestling star King Mo to join Mixed Martial Arts - Cormier describes being in awe of Mo’s payout for his first fight, making 50,000 to fight in Japan, an unreal amount of money for a single night of work whether or not you’ve made your life in Amateur Athletics as Cormier had. Cormier longed for competition and purpose; he longed to be the best, and if Wrestling wasn’t his destiny, then perhaps MMA could be. Cormier’s beginnings in MMA echoed his time at Colby - Debuting in September 2009, Cormier remained active in 2010, amounting a 6-0 record against solid competition for a debuting fighter. You might be wondering how does one determine what is “solid competition” as that is pretty vague - A good shorthand is to use a fighter’s first 10 fights or first 2 years of competition and look at the records of fighters that they fought; typically, even all time great fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva or Georges St-Pierre will debut and fight relatively inexperienced fighters in order to get their feet wet. For Cormier, his fights on regionals and Strikeforce undercards in his first 6 outings were relatively experienced, a collective record of 34-8 against solid regional fighters like Soa Palalei - but while Cormier’s first 6 fights were impressive, his ascent was about to experience a pretty meteoric rise. Despite his age, Cormier’s status in Strikeforce, then the second largest MMA promotion in the country, as an up and coming fighter was noteworthy - he had come in with elite wrestling, was picking up striking and submissions very well, if he continued this path, he would become a force to be reckoned with in the coming years. In 2011, Strikeforce exploded with community interest with its announcement of a Heavyweight Grand Prix, an 16 man single elimination tournament with great fighters from around the world where the winner could ostensibly be considered the best heavyweight on the planet, and with Cormier’s profile in Strikeforce, he was to fight fellow prospect Shane Del Rosario for a spot as an Alternate to step in should one of the participants be unable to continue in the tournament. A Meeting between two of the brightest up and coming stars in the heavyweight division would never come to pass however as Del Rosario pulled out of the fight following a car crash, which saw Cormier matched up with MMA Veteran Jeff Monson, a seasoned grappling champion with 53 fights and a laundry list of achievements in grappling and mixed martial arts. It didn’t seem this way at the time, but Cormier, entering into just his 8th MMA fight, stood to be challenged in a pretty crucial way - he would have to beat Monson without using his grappling, because any opportunity for Monson to initiate an exchange on the ground could spell disaster for the relative rookie. Cormier’s budding striking skills were on full display as he beat Monson wide, defending takedowns with ease and sweeping the judge’s scorecards 3-0 to become the alternate for the Heavyweight Grand Prix. Later in the night, grand prix matches were happening - Josh Barnett, one of MMA’s most tenured top fighters, would submit Brett Rogers, one of Strikeforce’s home grown power punching talents, while Alistair Overeem, reigning Heayweight champion, would face Fabricio Werdum, one of the best grapplers in the world. Werdum was coming off of a 2010 upset of Fedor Emelianenko, then the #1 Heavyweight on the planet, with a surprise triangle choke when Fedor attempted to finish Werdum early, and Overeem, aware of Werdum’s propensity for a fast finish, would enact a gameplan similar to Cormier’s against Monson; not engaging on the ground, stopping takedowns and resetting to win on the feet en route to a decision victory. The semi finals for the Grand Prix were set - Josh Barnett would face Sergei Kharitonov, russian power puncher who finished Andrei Arlovski in round 1, and Alistair OVereem would face Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, a perennial fringe top 10 fighter who had broken into prominence with his 2nd round tko of the great Fedor Emelianenko… This set up wouldn’t come to pass as Overeem dropped from the grand prix due to a number of reasons that are irrelevant to this story; what is relevant is that someone needed to fill in for the Heavyweight Champion, someone needed to face Bigfoot Silva in the Grand Prix Semi Finals… Someone who just became the alternate for the heavyweight grand prix by beating Jeff Monson.

The fight between Bigfoot Silva and Daniel Cormier is one of those “where were you” moments in MMA History; Cormier was the underdog for the first time in his short career, going against Bigfoot Silva, who had beaten top fighters in Andrei ARlovski and Fedor Emelianenko. Bigfoot had been a top 10 fighter for a handful of years, known as one of the best kept secrets in the sport for those who watched him. Cormier was a good fighter, maybe even a great fighter, but it’s incredibly uncommon for a great fighter who is building up their skillset to beat an elite fighter so early in their careers. There are upsets, in 2007, unheralded 2-1 fighter Sokoudjou would upset top Light Heavyweights Little Nog and Ricardo Arona in PRIDE. 1995, Frank Shamrock would debut in a fight against Bas Rutten and come away with a majority decision in Pancrase, it’s not completely unprecedented for fighters like this to win, but it’s incredibly unlikely - all time great fighters build slowly, they don’t show up and beat top fighters and remain at that level, not in 2011… but Daniel Cormier did it. Not only that, but he blew Bigfoot’s doors off in just under 4 minutes. It was absolutely insane and unreal to witness, Bigfoot was a really good fighter, 16-2 with his only loss since 2006 to Fabricio Werdum by decision. Cormier had gotten finishes before, but they all come on the ground; when he fought Monson, the entire fight took place on the feet and Cormier landed shot after shot but Monson wouldn’t go down - Bigfoot Silva, one of the best heavyweights in the world, went down in such dramatic fashion that it completely changed Cormier’s perception overnight. He was no longer Daniel Cormier, the ace wrestler with a ton of potential - he was Daniel Cormier, one of the best fighters on the planet, and was just one fight away from winning the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, a tournament he didn’t start 2011 being a part of. On May 19th 2012, Daniel Cormier faced Josh Barnett in the Grand Prix Finals. A Meeting between two of the best heavyweights on the planet, and Cormier, once again the underdog, would come out and show the world that he was special. Barnett put up a lot of resistance, going to 5 round decision and landing great shots in the clinch throughout the fight, but every moment that anybody remembers was Cormier’s - a huge slam, shots at range, brilliant clinch work, Daniel Cormier, just 10 fights and 2 and a half years into his career, had achieved what some fighters don’t for the entirety of theirs; he had dominated top level competition where the lights shined bright. After May 19th 2012, Cormier was a made man - he could never return to being the inexperienced but high ceiling prospect, he was, demonstrably, one of the best in the world, and it was time he showcased it in the UFC.

The MMA Landscape in 2012 was a very strange place. Shortly before Daniel Cormier’s MMA Debut, Strikeforce, previously a California regional promotion, had exploded in notoriety, granting them the opportunity to pursue big projects with a high upside like Cormier. In early 2011, the parent company for the UFC purchased Strikeforce, bringing them under hte UFC umbrella and deeming everybody who was in the company as second class by default. This was nothing new in MMA, but save for an overarching athletic association such as the NCAA to classify organizations as Division 1, Division 2, etc, the perception had been for the last few years that the UFC was the major leagues, but Strikeforce had developed into a definitive alternative, especially with their heavyweight division. While the UFC was dominated by big figures like Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar at its upper echelon, Strikeforce showcased Fedor Emelianenko and Alistair Overeem as their crown jewels, but once Strikeforce was bought, the momentum of the Grand Prix slowed to a crawl and by the time the finals were fought between Cormier and Barnett, people weren’t as much excited as they were glad that it was over, which left Cormier in a state of limbo. He wasn’t fighting at the level of Colby Community College anymore, but nobody would say that he was the best in the world while he plied his craft outside the UFC… The problem arose with Cormier’s devout loyalty. In 2013, when Strikeforce closed its doors and Cormier made his way into the company, it was with a lot of fanfare as he was the best heavyweight from outside the UFC. Cormier would fight divisional stalwarts in Frank Mir and Roy Nelson, and he looked good against the two of them, but his career path got complicated after UFC 166. See, when Cormier crossed into Mixed Martial Arts, he joined a California MMA Team called the American Kickboxing Academy, known by its shorthand of AKA. AKA was well known by this point of taking star amateur wrestlers and molding them into complete mixed martial artists, playing host to Division 1 National Champion Josh Koscheck, Purdue’s Jon Fitch and, most notably, ASU’s Cain Velasquez. Velasquez was the star heavyweight of AKA for years, debuting in 2006 and running to the Heavyweight Championship in 2010 with an undefeated record. In 2011, Cain experienced long layoffs due to injuries as well as a quick knockout against divisional rival Junior Dos Santos while Daniel Cormier dominated Strikeforce. In 2012, Velasquez rebounded to win back the heavyweight championship while Cormier won the Heavyweight Grand Prix. Going into 2013, it could be argued that AKA played host to two of the the top 3 best Heavyweights on the planet with Cain Velasquez and Daniel Cormier, and while questioned abounded about what Cormier would do, Cormier made it very clear - he would not fight Cain Velasquez. These questions had come up about mma fighters before; Koscheck and Fitch were top welterweights around the same time and never ended up fighting one another, a famous story in 2005 saw Chute Boxe teammates Shogun Rua and Wanderlei Silva proclaim that if they were to meet in the Middleweight Grand Prix finals, they would not fight and give the victory to Chute Boxe, in Boxing, the Heavyweight Division was dominated by Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, and while they were not as opposed to fighting as the previous examples, the two would never seriously entertain the idea. Fighting your teammate in MMA means that you have to focus on harming someone who you are with day in and day out, affecting their livelihood in a way that some people simply cannot chalk up to “Just business”. To this day, there are very few examples of teammates in MMA fighting, it just does not happen very often. After UFC 166, Daniel Cormier had beaten Roy Nelson and Cain Velasquez had defended the Heavyweight Championship against Junior Dos Santos, the dam had to give; either Daniel Cormier would have to fight Cain Velasquez, or he’d have to go elsewhere, and Cormier stayed firm, he would not fight Cain Velasquez. The question on everybody’s mind then was one he would attempt to answer - Could Daniel Cormier, who famously missed the olympics due to a weight cutting catastrophe, make 205 pounds, a weight class that was even lighter than the mark he missed in 2008? It was the question that would define Cormier’s career - if his body couldn’t take it, the best case scenario is that, for his MMA Career to advance, he would need to secretly hope that his teammate, his brother, would lose the championship… the worst case scenario is that his body shuts down during the weight cut, and this time, the doctors aren’t able to get it working again… it would be his last weight cut.

Cormier’s move to 205 wasn’t just because of his comradery with Cain Velasquez, but there was an element of a personal grudge. In October 2010, the night that Cain Velasquez beat Brock Lesnar for the Heavyweight Championship, a then 5-0 Daniel Cormier was there to support his teammate, and he comes in contact with a young MMA Fighter named Jon Jones. Jones is just 23 years old, but has already received a ton off acclaim as a future champion after performances against veterans Stephan Bonnar and Brandon Vera. Cormier and Jones are talking, and while accounts vary, all parties involve agree that Jones doesn’t know Cormier very well as he’s not that familiar with high profile Amateur Wrestling, and, being 23, he brashly tells Cormier that he bets he can take him down. On Jones’s end, he believes this is an extension of his hand to joke around with his senior and that Cormier got annoyed that some kid would insult him like that. On Cormier’s, his issue is that Jones tried to break the ice by challenging him and belittling his ability. It’s a minor interaction, there wouldn’t be much made of it had the wheels of time rolled differently. In 2011, while Daniel Cormier broke out at heavyweight, Jon Jones would have one of the greatest years in Mixed Martial ARts History, winning the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship and leaving absolute carnage in his wake as he destroyed legends of the sport still fighting at a high level. In 2012, when Cormier completed his rise to stardom by beating Barnett, Jon Jones would emphatically beat career rival Rashad Evans and embarrass legend Vitor Belfort. As Cormier’s jump to Light Heavyweight dawned, this story begins to be recirculated; Jones, no longer an upcoming phenom but instead on the shortlist for the best fighter in the world, is poked and prodded about the undefeated Heavyweight fighter who is moving to his division - this minor interaction is trotted out and played up throughout 2014 as Cormier accrues minor wins in the division; The collision course was set for UFC 178 in September 2014, Jones vs Cormier in a personal grudge match for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. On August 4th, 6 weeks out from Fight Night, Jones and Cormier would take part in a customary pre fight press conference, but when the two went to stare down, it was clear that whether or not their 2010 interaction mattered was immaterial, there was serious fire between the two. Jones and Cormier came face to face, and Jones, the taller man, put his forehead on Cormier’s, bringing them eye to eye in an attempt at intimidation; Cormier refused to be touched, shoving Jones away, and at that point, all hell broke loose……..

The brawl between the two was everywhere instantly, it’s one of those big moments in modern sports buildup where it went from exciting sporting contest to a can’t miss affair. What made it even more emphatic was the aftermath; the two would be interviewed on ESPN’s Sportscenter, where Jones would frame himself as the victim while Cormier called him fake and a punk - bold words until, as if by fate, even more footage dropped of the two after the interview with the cameras rolling, where Jones and Cormier famously barbed one another, climaxing in an eternal exchange; “I wish they would let me over there and i could spit in your face” “You know I would kill you if you did that, right?” “Let’s try that, Jon”. In one day, these two pulled their masks off and revealed to themselves and the world how much hatred and contempt there was between them. Buzz in combat sports is an interesting mistress - often times it’s fake, empty words to build up what is otherwise an unremarkable matchup otherwise. Between Jones and Cormier, from the brawl to the clear contempt for Jones’s media persona in the Sportscenter interview to the hostility between them off the air, it was clear that these two could not stand one another, and at the core of their hatred was one of the highest level fights in MMA History. The two would not meet in September 2014 after a Jones injury, but instead in January 2015 - Jon Jones vs Daniel Cormier, something had to give between the two greats.

The way Boxing historians talk about Boxing, you would think that the special fights over the decades were living, breathing entities that took in the weight of the world around it and often gave the most potent ending possible. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, a past his best Ali enticed Foreman, a young and strong power puncher, to land shot after shot on him and his guard and endured the hardest punches in the world in order to knock him out late, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran met in two classic bouts, with Duran goading a young and brash Leonard into brawling with him and ceding his advantage en route to a loss, and in the rematch, Leonard maintaining focus, boxing circles around Duran until Duran famously uttered “No Mas”. The personality that drives sports is the beating heart of our engagement, the expression that only physicality brings is unlike any art you can create with a brush or a chisel. When it came to Jon Jones vs Daniel Cormier, the hatred between them can be boiled down to a refusal to cede an inch to the other; Cormier did not want to give Jones credit that Jones could take him down and Jones didn’t want to look up to Cormier as a figure to be deified. When they stared down, Cormier refused to be intimidating and Jones refused to let Cormier’s push be the last word. When they were backstage at Sportscenter, the two refused to let the other get the last word - Jones threatened to kill Cormier, and Cormier told him he would love to see him try. When fights with bad blood finally come to blows, it’s so rare that there is any kind of expressive picture that the two paint, but with Jones and Cormier, the two engaged in a clinch battle for the majority of the fight and refused to cede an inch to the other. Most clinching in mma fights takes place on the cage or the ropes, a common boundary to use in advantage and disadvantage, but I have never seen such an emphatic insistence on clinching in the middle of the cage and looking to push the other back, and both of them refusing to budge. For Cormier’s part, his intricate and layered clinch work was on full display, weaving in and out of Jones’s grips to get a spot of advantage and strike before Jones closed it, but the night was ultimately Jones’s both spiritually and physically, with Jones proving his bet right and taking Cormier down, ultimately leading to his hand being raised and declared the champion - Jon Jones handed Daniel Cormier his first loss in Mixed Martial ARts, and took his rightful place as the best fighter on the planet. The fight didn’t look unwinnable, Cormier waded into the clinch with a much bigger man, rested during a crucial round 4 and 5 where Jones was able to score points and didn’t account for Jones’s physical advantages when pressing, but the loss hit him hard. Cormier had gotten what he’d wanted for 5 years, a chance to shut Jon Jones up, and it slipped through his fingers. Once again, Cormier was lost - Cain Velasquez was inactive but still held the heavyweight championship, and it seemed like he did not have the answers to beat Jones, just as he could not depose Sanderson at 84 kilograms or beat Gatsalov in 2004. Cormier’s path forward was unclear, he had been unstoppable since his transition to MMA, and now, for the first time, his momentum has stopped - Where else could he go? What else could he do?

On April 28th 2015, Jon Jones would be suspended and stripped of the Light Heavyweight Championship. It was part of a hellish 4 months for Jones following his greatest career high - Jones had failed a drug test prior to the Cormier bout for Cocaine, which dominated headlines briefly as the best fighter in the world was proving himself a potential flight risk, but that fear was confirmed when it was announced that Jones was indefinitely suspended pending investigation of a hit and run incident, where he would crash his car into a pregnant woman’s and flee the scene on foot. Jon Jones, the best fighter on the planet, left behind his championship with an unknown date of return, with Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, a resurgent power puncher as the #1 Contender to face Jones just a month from then. With no other options, Anthony Johnson would face Daniel Cormier in a bout for the vacant championship - Cormier had a second shot at championship glory,a nd this time, he wouldn’t let it go. Save for a scare at the beginning of the fight when Rumble landed a massive right hand that floored Cormier for the first time in his career, the fight was a runaway Cormier victory - his wrestling prowess was on full display as he ragdolled the titan and submitted him in the 3rd round. It’s a performance that seemingly quelled many demons about Cormier - his resilience to bounce back after his first career loss, his durability to stay focused after absorbing a massive blow, ostensibly winning from behind, but it was as if this was a curse to bear - had Rumble beaten Cormier, nobody would have had an issue with claiming he was the best Light Heavyweight available, he hadn’t tasted defeat at the hands of the deposed champion and, if Jones returns and Rumble is still champion, they would fight for the true title of Undisputed #1 Light Heavyweight… but instead, Cormier beat Rumble handily just 4 months after losing to Jones. For many, the loss to Jones was a shadow Cormier couldn’t escape from; that his victory over Rumble meant he was holding a make believe championship only because Jones wasn’t there. Cormier’s curse was that he had the audacity to be the greatest available fighter left in Jones’s wake; he did not have a Jon Jones to beat, but Jon Jones had beaten Daniel Cormier, and no matter how long he stayed away, it would haunt Cormier’s title reign. Jones would be tentatively scheduled to face Cormier almost a year later at UFC 197 - Cormier would pull out with an injury and be on commentary for the fight that Jones had with contender Ovince St Preux. While Jones won the fight a dominant 5-0, it was a relatively unimpressive performance for the All Time Great, with Cormier on commentary expressing his frustrations with being too injured to fight. With the two cleared to compete, they were scheduled for UFC 200, Champion vs The True #1 Fighter, the winner almost assuredly being crowned the best fighter on the planet. It was the UFC’s biggest stage for what is undoubtedly their biggest fight - it had been 6 years since their first interaction, it had been 2 years that their names were attached to each other following the press conference brawl, the two had been calling each other out after their fights and desperately wanted to get at one another again; the needed it, the world needed it - The stage was set - Daniel Cormier vs Jon Jones 2 at UFC 200.

Just like that, the world ended. Tuesday, July 5th, 2016, just 4 days before UFC 200, Jon Jones tested positive for performance enhancing substances. He would be removed from the event and suspended for a year. In the coming days, Jon Jones will do a press conference where he will tearfully claim that he does not know how this test came back positive, but he will do his time and continue trying to live better. On the other side of the card, Daniel Cormier was crushed; his chance to erase the demons had been stolen from him, and in the process, he gave people the one thing that could have changed their minds about him being a fake champion; he gave them his pain. The pain Cormier showed being unable to fight Jones, begging Dana White to just let the fight go on, it was one of the only things that could be done to convince people who were rabidly against him to accept that he wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t a snake, he really wanted to fight Jones and to make things right. For the next year, Cormier was accepted as a champion - maybe he wasn’t called the best by a subsection, but his availability for UFC 200 and his dismantling of Anthony Johnson in a rematch in early 2017 assured people that, if Jon Jones truly was absent, Cormier would fit well as the best Light Heavyweight In The World. Upon Jones’s return, the two would, once again, meet at a press conference, and while a brawl would not ensue, it was clear the dynamic between the two was established - the years had not calmed their hatred, if anything, Cormier’s hatred for Jones had amplified hundreds of times over. This is a man who’s existence has plagued Cormier’s professional life, as long as Jones was essentially undefeated, it was a stain on Cormier’s reputation, and as long as Jones continued to stay a world away due to suspensions, righting those wrongs was an unattainable reality. These two men would meet one last time July 29th 2017 - the last trial of Cormier’s life, the chance to correct a lifetime of only brushing greatness but never taking hold of it himself. In his path was Jon Jones, potentially the greatest fighter of all time in maybe the peak of his power. Jones had beaten Cormier before, but this was different - there was improvements made by Cormier, tape to study, mentally Cormier was in the right place while Jones had been shaken by suspensions and drug test accusations. When the fight came, it seemed as if Cormier had found something in his hyper aggression, closing distance and landing hard punches on Jones inside, unable to manhandle Jones but utilizing his skill to position himself to land shots, taking the first two rounds. For his part, Jones simply waited - he picked at Cormier as he closed distance, he allowed Cormier to burn the candle bright, and he waited, knowing that he had one advantage Cormier could never overcome - Size. Jones’s size has always benefitted him in his career, but against Cormier, the prolific clinch fighter and inhumanly great grappler, he needed to close a ton of distance to get his offense off, and as a result, was never particularly comfortable at range. Between Cormier’s aggression int he first 2 rounds and Jones’s targeted attacks to the body, Cormier had burned a lot of energy, and while Cormier was not going to gas, exhaustion at a high level of sport can boil down to something as simple as a split second of misjudgement, and it’s all Jones needed. Loading his leg for a kick, Cormier leaned over at the waist, predicting it would be going to the body, only for Jones to go up high to his head, putting Cormier on rubber legs and leading to a finish. Once again, Jones and Cormier met in the cage, and once again, Jones would have his hand raised. After the fight, Jones was complimentary of Cormier; almost excessively so… I think he knew what this loss would do to Daniel - he knew it would break him.

Cormier has always been an emotional competitor; it was a point to sell an earlier light heavyweight fight with Patrick Cummins that the two former wrestlers trained together for a session, and afterwards, Cormier broke down in tears. It was implied that “Cummins made him cry” was something that got under Cormier’s skin, but Cormier owned up to it. As the story goes, the incident happened in 2004 in the lead up to the Olympics, Cormier and Cummins had a session, and Cummins got the better of him. Determined to get his back, Cormier called to go again, but his coach said no, that’s it, the olympics are over for you, and at this prospect, Cormier broke down. He is a talent who puts every bit of his soul into competing, and the prospect of him catching a loss and his dreams being taken away from him put him into the depths of sorrow. When Jones beat Cormier in 2017, Cormier was interviewed, and broke down in tears. Famously, Cormier was asked about his rivalry with Jones, and Cormier stated in the most plain terms that there was no rivalry, Jones had won both times, so they aren’t rivals - It’s this dynamic that saw Cormier completely at a loss. Cormier had been chasing greatness for 17 years since his move to Oklahoma State, and in every phase of his life, he has come across roadblocks he could not overcome - to Cormier, his inability to beat Cael Sanderson, Khadzhimurat Gatsalov and Jon Jones, three of the most dominant wrestlers in their field, meant that he was not worthy of participating int he field. This is something that is drilled into wrestlers; you are able to take a loss because that’s the culture, but you can never stop seeking the top status, because if you accept, in your heart of hearts, that #1 is unattainable, you cannot continue. Daniel Cormier never believed that he was unable to be #1, but that night in 2017, I think that thought finally crystallized for him - Cormier was 38 years old, he had been chasing that greatness for almost 2 decades, and had never truly seized it, but he pushed anyways, but, when it came to Jon Jones, it seemed that no matter how hard he pushed, Jones could push back harder. He could not view Jones as a rival because there is a competitive push and pull with Rivals, and Cormier just couldn’t push Jones enough to wobble him. That night in 2017, Jones ended the night as champion and Cormier ended the night in tears; aimless, broken.

On August 28th, 2017, it was announced that Jon Jones had failed another drug test, and the result of the Cormier bout would be changed to a no contest with Jones being stripped of the Light Heavyweight Championship. Daniel Cormier, to this day, has never invalidated the results of these fights even though he was within his rights to - In the past year, Jones and Cormier have been scheduled to fight twice, and before or after the fights, Jones invalidated months of Cormier’s work by taking steroids. It also needs to be mentioned that Jones’s hit and run suspension in April 2015 coincided almost directly with the UFC making a deal with the United States Anti Doping Agency to form a comprehensive anti doping program with year round drug testing for all of their athletes. Jones’s suspension was before this deal took place, but when Jones returned, the only fight he had without controversy was his bout with Ovince St Preux, where Jones looked a career worst despite winning the fight wide. Prior to Jones’s hit and run suspension, there was weirdness brewing with the drug test results from Jones and Cormier’s first bout in January 2015, where the testosterone levels of Jones and Cormier were strangely low, in the case of Jones, an athlete in his late 20’s, experts in these test results concluded that this was almost assuredly the result of blocking agents used to mask illegal drug use. This story was buzzing briefly until the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced Jones had tested positive for cocaine, but it’s most notable because, for this fight, the state athletic commission had demanded random testing as opposed to the more normalized standard testing around the fight. This is not a smoking gun nor a clear sign of guilt, but surrounding 3 scheduled meetings with Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones has had drug test controversies in each of them, failing two tests and having suspicious levels in another… after all of this, Daniel Cormier remained complimentary of Jones and his abilities, never minimizing his greatness or invalidating Jones’s victories over himself. Despite the pain in his heart, Cormier viewed the situation as a tragedy - that Jones, with all the natural skill in the world, still felt he needed to turn to steroids in order to augment his performance. Cormier was, once again, the Light Heavyweight champion, but even after the drug test failures, it was back to where he started - Jones had knocked him out, it didn’t matter who Cormier beat or how Cormier looked, he could never be respected as the Light Heavyweight champion because he only held the belt while Jones was away… To be any level of respected, Daniel Cormier needed to exit all of it. He couldn’t exist in Jones’s shadow like he couldn’t exist in Sanderson’s or Gatsalov’s; He needed a legacy all his own… he needed to go where Jones had never stepped.

While Cormier spent years of his life chasing a Jones victory that would never come, the UFC Heavyweight Division had changed immeasurably. Gone were the days of Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos, instead replaced by one unifying figure. Stipe Miocic was a fighter who had accrued a solid amount of hype on the regional scene; paying tribute to his croatian ancestry, his Croatia flag trunks caught the eye of hardcore fans, invoking memories of MMA LEgend Mirko Cro Cop, but it was Stipe’s pedigree that sold people. Stipe’s younger years had been marked by high level performances in both Wrestling and Boxing, competing in the NCAA Division 1 National Championships and the national Golden Gloves Championship. When Stipe debuted in 2010, he quickly marched to a 6-0 record with 6 finishes, being signed by the UFC in mid 2011. From there, Stipe would follow a common trajectory; he beat lower end fighters, tended to struggle when a step up was considered too large, but slowly increased his skill level until 2016, when he put himself on the map as a great fighter. Knocking out resurgent top heavyweight Andrei ARlovski in less than a minute, Stipe would get a title shot against Fabricio Werdum. Werdum had rebounded since his Overeem loss in the Strikeforce Grand Prix to become the best UFC Heavyweight in ages, dominating opposition until he came to fight Cain Velasquez in MExico City for the Championship, where he would dominate him as well. Going into fight Werdum, Stipe would be facing down a Brazilian Stadium Show as an underdog against the great Champion, and took 2 and a half minutes to catch Werdum coming in to put him down to the shock of the 45,000 in attendance. You could hear a pin drop in the arena as Stipe Miocic uttered the phrase “I’m the champ” over and over, as if trying to convince himself more than anything else that this was all real. Stipe would go on to define the heavyweight division for the coming years - knockout victories over Alistair Overeem and Junior Dos Santos marked his title defenses until he came up against massive power puncher Francis Ngannou. Ngannou had burst onto the scene with a string of terrifying finishes, and while Miocic had been a great champion, he had not been bulletproof, being hurt by Alistair Overeem in their fight and having to persevere through hardships in some of his previous fights. The common thought was that Miocic was good, but he was a bit fragile, and Ngannou was going to shatter him to pieces, but there was a different element playing into their bout - the UFC HEavyweight Championship has, historically, been the most difficult title to hold in the company’s history, with nobody ever accruing more than 2 consecutive title defenses in a single reign. It was almost a rite of passage for an era’s defining heavyweight to win the title, defend it twice and then pass the torch as it were to the next. The stage was set for Francis Ngannou’s ascent, but Stipe Miocic put up a hard wall to block it, surviving the terrifying power of Ngannou and cruising to an easy 5-0 decision victory on the scorecards. Stipe Miocic was, by definition, the most dominant Heavyweight champion in UFC History, he wasn’t a flashy or dynamic fighter, but he was still good enough to dominate the division for years in a way that nobody had ever done. The night Stipe Miocic beat Francis Ngannou, the co main event for the card was a Light Heavyweight title bout between Daniel Cormier and Volkan Oezdemir, a man who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and rose to contendership status. Oezdemir had been getting wins with deceptive power, and when he met Cormier, it was a bout to see where Cormier was at after the knockout at the hands of Jones. Cormier did what he always did when he was met with someone who wasn’t era defining Great - he put Oezdemir in the dirt, winning by TKO in 7 minutes and never looking particularly threatened despite standing in the path of Oezdemir’s shots. In the coming days after the event, word started to get around about Daniel Cormier moving to Heavyweight to fight Stipe Miocic in a Champion vs Champion bout. This seemed unbelievable for a lot of people - for the past several years, as Jon Jones had dominated the Light Heavyweight division, it was asked of him repeatedly if he would move up to Heavyweight, and each time, he expressed interest but fell back to contract negotiations or the timing not being right for his body. The precedent had been set for much of the last decade that you should not expect to see inter divisional bouts between the Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight champions, but things were different now; the UFC had entered into an era where they wanted to push these champion vs champion matches much more frequently. Since hte introduction of championships in 1997 to 2015, a reigning UFC Champion would fight for another division’s championship only once - Lightweight Champion BJ Penn fought Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre. More commonly, BJ Penn and Randy Couture were the only fighters who had won UFC Championships in two weight classes separately, but nobody had crossed the line to hold titles in two weight classes until 2016, when Conor McGregor was permitted to fight for the Lightweight Championship while holding the Featherweight. In the coming years, these bouts would become much more common, but in mid 2018, it had only been done twice, so people’s hesitation to the fight being signed was understandable, but on January 6th 2018, just days after the two had defended their championships successfully, the bout was announced for UFC 226, on July 7th. For the previous 2 years, Daniel Cormier has been attached to a July Pay Per View card to face Jon Jones, the greatest light heavyweight of all time, in a bid to define his legacy as one of the greats, but through the failings of Jones, Cormier was granted another chance as the Light Heavyweight Champion, to hold his head high and march into UFC 226 to try and grab greatness one last time. Cormier was 39, his career up tot his point had been defined by his inability to be considered the best in the world, getting hard walled by the true #1 in his divisions, and as he stepped in to fight Stipe Miocic, he fought the defining heavyweight of his era - a challenge that Cormier had known all too well. Cael Sanderson’s Collegiate Dominance, Khadzimurat Gatsalov’s 5 year Gold Medal streak, Jon Jones’s Light Heavyweight reign, Daniel Cormier’s greatness was halted from being recognized because of his meetings with 3 separate fighters defining their legacy at the same time; one of the world’s most special athletes was stopped because he was unlucky enough to not be on the side of destiny. As Cormier and Miocic enter the cage and the door is locked behind them, he faces down the UFC’s defining Heavyweight of the 2010’s, a man who’s dominance has been unchallenged in a division known for being an untamed wilderness. Not everybody gets a 4th shot to be the best, and in order for Cormier to capitalize, he would have to beat a man who the best heavyweights of a generation fell to one after another; he had to end the greatest title reign in UFC Heavyweight History.

In modern culture, we stress to children the importance of merit; that if you work hard and prove yourself, good things will happen to you because you’ve earned it. It’s an important lesson to learn, it instills ethics and values at a formative time of development… but the truth is that as valuable a concept as merit is, there’s just no accounting for what true greatness requires - Luck. It’s luck that marks true, unquestionable greatness. For his entire professional career, Daniel Cormier could not have been less lucky. Wrestling in College at the same time as Cael Sanderson, fighting in Mixed Martial Arts the same time as Jon Jones, these time periods are separated by over a decade - over a decade at the highest level achievable in two very different sports; it takes an athlete as special as Daniel Cormier to even exist tangentially to these two untouchable juggernauts, but athletes at Cormier’s level of special aren’t heralded unless they truly transcend greatness, and for Cormier, it meant toppling the unbeatable. By nature of their greatness, he could not best Sanderson, Gatsalov or Jones - it wasn’t until 2018, 18 years after transferring to Oklahoma State in order to compete against better wrestlers in College, that Cormier would get over the hump. Meeting Stipe Miocic, the greatest heavyweight in UFC History, Cormier’s competitive career almost demanded that he lose - he was great, but he wasn’t destined to be the best. He entered the cage with Miocic an underdog, and met the great champion on equal footing, only to put him down in the first round, taking the heavyweight championship by knockout. What Cormier did that night in 2018 was break a curse that had haunted him for almost 2 decades - it wasn’t just about beating the best, it wasn’t just about becoming #1, but it was about achieving something that none of his contemporaries could claim dominion over. Had Cormier won a Gold Medal in 2004, he would equal Sanderson’s placement. Had Cormier won a Gold Medal in 2008 without beating Gatsalov, he would just equal the score put up by Gatsalov at the Olympics. Had Cormier simply stayed put at Light Heavyweight, he would never be able to shake the shadow of Jon Jones; even if Jones never fought again and Cormier broke every record, the demon of knowing that he was doing so without a victory over Jon Jones himself would haunt him forever. To escape this as his defining legacy, he needed to do what Jones had not; he needed to go to the heavyweight division and win the title, and in his path was the UFC’s most dominant heavyweight champion in history, and Cormier refused to be denied, cementing himself in history as his own man. Over the coming years, Cormier would rematch Miocic and lose, he would fight contender Derrick Lewis, he would become inactive leading to his retirement, but what makes true greatness is the undeniable nature of it. By beating Stipe Miocic in July 2018, Daniel Cormier cemented himself in history as the first and only fighter to hold both the UFC Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight Championships, beating the UFC’s greatest to do so, and it didn’t matter that Cormier lost to Stipe in the years after just like it didn’t matter that Cormier dominated in Jones’s absence - you cannot erase what happened. Cormier’s career is not that of a plucky underdog, but someone who was seemingly destined to transcend being stopped by those who were transcendent; it’s a story about refusing to be told you are not special because you know that you are. Daniel Cormier retired in 2020, going out in a trilogy bout with Stipe Miocic, and upon retirement, was finally loudly appreciate by MMA at large, being talked about as one of the greatest of all time; through the hell and the sorrow, the fire and the flames, Cormier could be reborn and be loved for the special, once in a lifetime talent he was.

The Lonely Hero

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Daniel Cormier: Captain Of The Team (PHOENIX #1)

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