DC: I don’t know why fans have swung back to cheering

MMA fighters can be weird. But MMA fans can be far weirder. Daniel Cormier is rock steady but has suffered wildly different fan reactions.

He rose in Strikeforce as a monster wrestler with an affable demeanor outside the cage. Fans liked him.

After he signed with the UFC ‘DC’ developed a rivalry with Jon Jones, and somehow fans ended up siding with the coke-snorting, pregnant-lady injuring, piss-test failing, wheels-falling-off Jones over the genial former captain of the US Olympic wrestling team.

And now fans seem to have swung back, loudly cheering Cormier as he fought Volkan Oezdemir at UFC 220 and at the UFC 25th anniversary press conference earlier this month. Cormier was baffled when the fans were booing, and he’s baffled as to why it swung.

I don’t know what I did, said Cormier, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. I didn’t really do anything. I did the exact same thing. They decide when they like you and when they don’t.

When I went out there that first time and they booed me with Jon, I just played the bad guy. I will say all the stuff you hate me saying. You hate that I make fun of [Jon Jones] for his addictions? I will say every one of those addictions and I’ll list them all out. Before it was like, I don’t think they’ll boo me for it. Okay, you’ll boo me for it? You don’t like that? I’d kind of feel out what people liked and didn’t like. And the things I got the most hate, on Twitter, I would start to say it in public. If you want me to be your bad guy, I’ll be your bad guy. I just kind of gauge it.

People just decide what they want to do. Going into the Jones fight, it was all boos. And then going into Boston, it was all cheers. Then when I went to that press conference in Brooklyn, cheers. They put me on the camera and for the first time, people yelled positive stuff. Usually they just boo me. I didn’t care. I just get used to it.

You’re never going to tell people how to feel. I used to try to do that. If you told me there’s something you don’t like, I’m going to harp on that thing. I want a reaction. Whether it is positive or negative, I just want you to not be indifferent. As long as you care, that’s good.

Cormier is now returning to heavyweight to face division champion Stipe Miocic, following a season as opposing coaches on TUF 27. He isn’t going to manufacture a beef with the friendly Miocic.

If it’s not genuine, people can see through that, said Cormier. If I start putting on that I hate Stipe Miocic, after going to Cleveland and doing a show on him and being around him and being friends with him, all of a sudden I hate him, people will be like ‘what, that makes no sense.’ That might actually turn people off from watching the fight, ‘this is too fake I can’t deal with it.’ I want to give a true accounting of what I am and what Stipe and I’s relationship truly is.