Daniel Cormier squashes the Spider

In the third fight on the UFC 200 PPV card, Daniel Cormier took on former middleweight champion Anderson Silva in a late replacement fight and was able to come out victorious. It wasn’t a spectacular performance, but Cormier was able to use his superior wrestling to control the action and win a decision.

For a moment there, it was like time stood still. The T-Mobile Arena was electrified as the legendary Anderson Silva made his trademark walkout to the arena.

When his bout with Daniel Cormier started, though, we were reminded that Silva is a 41-year-old fighter, two months removed from gall bladder surgery, who took a fight on 48-hours notice. While Silva deserves credit for stepping in and giving Cormier a matchup at UFC 200 after Jon Jones was pulled Wednesday night due to a potential anti-doping violation, the fight itself was anticlimactic. Cormier, the UFC light heavyweight champion, cruised to victory on Saturday night. The judges’ scores were 30-26 across the board.

“I trained for eight weeks for a specific guy,” Cormier said. “I fought a guy in Anderson Silva who is the greatest of all-time. I did what I had to do.”

source: mmafighting.com

About Daniel Cormier

It took him two tries, but Daniel Cormier can finally call himself the UFC’s light heavyweight champion – a title he earned through perseverance, hard work and a refusal to accept no for an answer.

When Jon Jones was suspended indefinitely and stripped of his belt in April 2015, Cormier begged UFC president Dana White for a chance to fight for the title again, despite having lost to Jones by unanimous decision in January 2015. Cormier got a second opportunity and capitalized, using a third-round rear naked choke on Anthony Rumble Johnson at UFC 187 to claim the vacant title.

Cormier is no stranger to success, having been a two-time Olympic wrestler and six-time U.S. Open national champion, but he has also struggled with losses. At Oklahoma State, he lost the Division I finals. He finished fourth at the 2008 Olympics and never made it to the 2012 Summer Games after falling ill.

source: ufc.com