DC breaks silence

Daniel Cormier won Juco nationals twice, but knew there were better wrestlers out there. In 2001 he made All American in Div I, but lost to Cael Sanderson. Then he started competing in freestyle and in 2007 earned Bronze at the world championships. The next year was his, the captain of the US wrestling team expected to win gold, but DC was forced to drop out when his kidneys failed during a weight cut. In 2009 he moved to MMA, and in 2012 became the Strikeforce heavyweight champion, but knew the UFC was considered better. In January of 2015 he lost to Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight title, and then won the title in May when Jones was suspended for out-of-sport misconduct. When Jones finally returned, he beat Cormier.

DC’s sporting life has been giant, but he always fell just short, sometimes just by one person on the planet. The loss at UFC 214 hit him with great force, and Cormier has been almost entirely silent since, until Monday’s appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour.

It’s a tough pill to swallow, said Cormier, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. You’ve got to remember, I’m a guy who wants to be the best. I train hard, I work hard and I feel like I was ready to go. I feel like I was prepared, and I was very disappointed in the result of the fight. But as I’ve looked back on it, I was upset, but I think a lot of the sadness came from — I feel like my coaches, I felt like they had done such a tremendous job of preparing me for this particular event, and for me to not be able to get the job done, that’s where I think a lot of my sadness came from.”

Every day I get hundreds of messages of people saying, ‘Hey, we miss you. DC, come back. What’s going on? Are you okay?’ And I think what matters the most is not the people saying, ‘Come back and fight, we want to see you fight again.’ It’s the people who just genuinely seem to be concerned for your well-being.”

It’s stuff like that which matters, that there are a lot people in this game that truly do care, and you don’t necessarily anticipate that, especially after these last couple years, the way that it’s been. But I think people show their true selves when they already know someone is down and they want to try to help you rebuild yourself. It’s a great feeling.

And Cormier, 38, is not done just yet.

Why would I stop fighting? he said. I feel like I still love the competition more than anything. That’s really what’s driving me. When I don’t have competition, I’m not in something like that, I’m miserable, man. I love to compete. I love to be in the environment. Not only am I going to fight again, but I do believe that Jon Jones and I will fight again. So, of course I have a desire to fight, and I believe that him and I will compete again before it’s all said and done.

I don’t know exactly what path leads back to a fight with Jones, but I anticipate he’ll be the champion. And I don’t believe anyone else in this division can compete with me. So, after I win enough fights, I believe that we’ll fight again. Also, we make money together, and when you make money together, the UFC is usually pretty open to making those matches.

The UFC has offered Cormier with multiple options, including a return to heavyweight.

I really shrunk myself from heavyweight, said Cormier. I used to have big old traps and I was bigger guy when I fought at heavyweight, but I’d entertain anything. The UFC values me and honestly, man, they’ve already reached out with some ideas about me fighting, and I was like, ‘Well, I need time.’ But there are options at heavyweight and options at 205. Obviously the Jimi Manuwa fight is a fight that could happen. Volkan Oezdemir has done fantastic for himself, a guy that’s a cool guy, but if the easiest path back to fighting the fights that I want is to go through somebody like that, then I’ll do it. So it’s a matter of just what I decide to do.

At this point, I’ve kinda gotten to a point in my career where the UFC, they really are very open to a lot of my suggestions. This last two-and-a-half years since I fought Jones the first time through now, I’ve headlined cards, there were cards I was supposed to headline or had marquee fights on, I’ve sold millions and millions of pay-per-views, and with that comes some respect within the organization.

Far, far lesser people made fun of Cormier for shedding tears, but it’s who he is, and undoubtedly simply the other side of the same drive that led to his greatness.

I’ve always been open and honest and genuine,” he said. “It’s just, in this situation they saw me at my lowest professionally. I’ll let it happen. This is not new. I’ve done this, I’ve cried every time I’ve lost wrestling matches, I’ve cried every time I lost in pretty much anything. It’s just, when I’m committed to something, it means so much that when it doesn’t work out, the emotions do come out.

I would expect [people] to say, ‘You know what, man, this guy wears his heart on his sleeve.’ But the silver lining is — I mean, it’s great that people are supporting me, but the silver lining does not erase the bottom line. The bottom line is that I didn’t get the job done, and that’s what sticks with me, so those are the things that I have to go back and work on, not really from a fighting standpoint, but just from a ‘me kinda living my life’ standpoint. At the end of the day, I have to accept that I did not get the job done, and I’m going to have to do something very special to get the opportunity to do it again, and I’m going to. I am honestly going to work to find a way to get myself locked back into the Octagon with that man. I have to.