Cormier, Daniel

Daniel Cormier was born March 20, 1979 in the city of Lafayette , Louisiana , USA in the family of Joseph and Audrey Cormier, he also has an older brother Joseph, sister Felicia and a younger brother Ferral.

While in high school, Daniel was seriously interested in wrestling. He became a three-time Louisiana state school champion. In high school, Northside Daniel increased the number of his victories. For all the time he lost only twice. After graduation, Cormier entered Colby Community College, where he won the national championship twice.

After college, Daniel continued his amateur wrestler's career. He was part of the US national team at the 2007 World Freestyle Wrestling Championships and the 2008 Summer Olympics. Daniel Cormier also represented the Oklahoma Slam team in the Real Pro Wrestling League, in which he became the first and only champion in the weight category up to 96 kg (211 pounds ). At the Olympics in Athens in 2004, became the fourth.

In 2007, he won the John Smith Prize, awarded to the best freestyle wrestler of the year in the United States. ^[five]

After completing his freestyle wrestling competitions, Daniel Cormier decided to try his hand at mixed martial arts . He trains at the American Academy of Kickboxing (AKA) with some of the best MMA fighters such as Kane Velazquez , Josh Koschek , John Fitch and Khabib Nurmagomedov ^[6] .

Strikeforce

Signing a contract with Strikeforce , Cormier debuts at Strikeforce Challengers: Kennedy vs. Cummings. In his debut fight, he defeated Gary Fraser by technical knockout. In the second match, Daniel knocked out John Devine.

On July 31, 2010, Cormier won the XMMA heavyweight championship title by defeating Lucas Brown, future regular boxing world champion , at the Xtreme MMA 2 Tournament.

Just two weeks later, he won his second MMA championship, defeating Tony Johnson at KOTC: Imminent Danger.

In November 2010, Daniel defended his XMMA title in a fight with Soa Palelei.

Daniel Cormier's next fight was at the Strikeforce Challengers: Woodley vs. Saffiedine, where he defeated Devin Cole by unanimous decision.

Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix

On Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum Cormier was stronger than MMA veteran Jeff Monson .

September 10, 2011 Cormier knocked out Brazilian Antonio Silva at the Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov. This victory brought the American to the finals of the tournament, where he met with Josh Barnett on May 20, 2012. In a tense battle that lasted five rounds, Cormier won by unanimous decision and became the champion of the Grand Prix Strikeforce heavyweight.

UFC

After his last fight with Dion Staring, and the closure of Strikeforce, Cormier signed a contract with the UFC .

Cormier's debut in the UFC took place on April 20, 2013 at the UFC event on Fox: Henderson vs. Melendez vs. Frank World . Daniel dominated Frank Mir throughout all three rounds and won by unanimous decision ^[7] .

After, Cormier defeated Roy Nelson on points ^[8] and decided to move to light heavyweight. In this weight category, Daniel won 2 confident victories in a row, and was honored to fight for the UFC light heavyweight title against John Jones . Cormier could not resist the opponent and lost by unanimous decision ^[9] .

Light Heavyweight Champion

Soon, May 23 at UFC 187, Cormier replaced John Jones , who was deprived of his belt due to legal problems, in a fight against Anthony Johnson for the vacant UFC light heavyweight title ^[10] . In the battle against Anthony, Daniel dominated all 3 rounds, due to control in the stalls, but Cormier won this fight thanks to a strangulation in the 3rd round of the match ^[11] .

In October 2015, he successfully defended his championship belt against Swede Alexander Gustafsson ^[12] .

July 10, 2016 as part of the UFC 200 . Cormier was to have a rematch with former UFC light heavyweight champion John Jones , but Jones ’s doping test yielded a positive result ^[13] and Jones was replaced by Anderson Silva . Cormier won by unanimous decision ^[14] .

A rematch with Anthony Johnson was supposed to take place in December 2016 at the UFC 206 tournament ^[15] , but on November 25, 2016, Cormier withdrew from the battle due to injury ^[16] . The fight was postponed to April 8, 2017 and took place at the UFC 210 tournament ^[17] . Cormier won the fight in the second round with a strangulation from behind.

A rematch with John Jones was once again planned and took place on July 29, 2017 at the UFC 214 tournament ^[18] . Cormier looked good in the first two rounds. During the fight, Jones inflicted numerous low kicks (kicks in the foot), thereby distracting Cormier from his main workpiece as part of the battle plan - a sudden high kick (kick in the head) in the third round, from which the shocked Cormier lost his balance and struggled to stay on his feet. After the blow, Jones repeatedly attacked Cormier with his foot in the body and a blow to the head, after which Cormier fell on the canvas. With numerous blows to the head, Jones finished off Cormier, knocking him out. Thus, Jones won by knockout in the third round of the fight, and Cormier lost the title of UFC champion. On August 22, it was announced that Jones had failed the doping test, which was taken after the weigh-in. Turinabol, which is an anabolic steroid , is said to have been found in Jones' blood. Jones was suspended until all trials took place ^[19] . On September 13, USADA confirmed that Test B tested positive for Turinabol, ^[20] as a result of which CSAC changed the status of the fight to “failed” and Cormier returned the champion belt ^[21] . However, during a further investigation by the USADA, it was proved that doping got into Jones’s blood by accident (as a result of using a contaminated dietary supplement), Jones didn’t take doping intentionally, and therefore the term of Jones’s suspension was reduced. On September 18, Cormier told tmz that he was open for a third fight with Jones after his removal was over. ^[22]

Cormier met Volcanos Ozdemir on January 20, 2018 at the UFC 220 tournament. Cormier defeated Ozdemir in the second round by technical knockout after dominating throughout the fight ^[23] . For the battle, Cormier received the "Performance of the evening" ^[24] .

Heavyweight Title

He won the heavyweight title at UFC 226 in a fight against Stipe Miocic , knocking him out in the first round. ^[25]

At the beginning of the fight, Daniel gave space to Miocic, stepping back. Stipe walked forward, sometimes skipping branded uppercuts from Cormier, but at the same time controlled his opponent. Towards the end of the first round, the fighters exchanged quite a lot of punches and Daniel began to seize the initiative little by little. Miochich's blows caused a dissection under his right eye. After another exchange, Cormier struck a strong right side, Stipe Miocic fell on the floor, where Daniel finished it off right there.

Thus, Daniel Cormier became the UFC champion in two weight categories at once - light heavy and heavy weight. ^[26]

Due to Cormier’s reluctance to defend the UFC light heavyweight title, the belt was played on December 30, 2018 at the UFC 232 tournament between the retired John Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. Jones defeated Gustafsson by TKO in the third round and regained the light heavyweight champion belt. Thus, Cormier lost the title of UFC light heavyweight champion.

On August 17, 2019 at the UFC 241 tournament, a rematch took place between Cormier and Miocic. In the first round, Cormier made a takedown and transferred Miocic to the ground, however, he could not cause significant damage to the opponent until the end of the round. During the first 3 rounds, the fighters exchanged numerous shots in the rack, which Cormier looked to everyone's surprise better. In round 4, Miocic began to implement a rather unexpected tactic for Cormier - the systematic application of uppercuts in the liver. Having inflicted many such blows, Miocic suddenly switched to Cormier’s head and delivered two heavy blows to the jaw, from which shocked Cormier lost his balance and was pressed to the net. Miocic finished off the falling Cormier, knocking him out. As a result of the fight, Miocic won by knockout in the fourth round of the fight and regained the UFC heavyweight title. Thus, Cormier lost the UFC heavyweight title.

UFC pay-per-views

From the first fights that Cormier won in the now closed organization Strikeforce , it was clear that he had great prospects in his MMA career.

In his fights, Cormier always relies on his clean boxing equipment, practically without using kicks, occasionally “shooting” with his feet to the middle level. At the same time, possessing a strong wrestling school in the form of free-style wrestling and Brazilian jiu jitsu, Cormier becomes invulnerable to any attempts to conduct takedowns, throws and so on. As a result, any attempts by opponents to impose the struggle on Cormier ended in failure. Cormier does not like to fight in the stalls and fight in the stalls. He defiantly moves away from the opponent, allowing him to stand up and continues to methodically work in boxing series, while Cormier’s reaction and technique are almost impeccable.

In only five fights: with Dan Henderson, Lucas Brown, Tony Johnson, Anthony Johnson and Darrick Lewis, he performed strangulation techniques, namely strangulation from behind. In the rest, his victory was achieved precisely by blows.

All this suggests that Cormier adheres to boxing tactics in fights, with the blocking of any wrestling actions and only in emergency situations gets involved in the fight. Also, Cormier does not try to humiliate an opponent before the fight, being polite on weigh-in and joint photos. During the fight, he behaves with restraint, allows the enemy to stand on his feet, defiantly keeping a distance in front of this, and when he wins, he does not express excessive joy.

At the same time, in the UFC, on the contrary, there are many athletes who scandal in advance, arrange skirmishes when weighing, and insult each other during fights. This tactic has an element of the show on which the UFC itself is based - more scandalous for higher ratings. Cormier eschews such behavior.

Mixed Martial Arts

• Ultimate Fighting Championship
  • UFC Light Heavyweight Champion (Once)
  • UFC Heavyweight Champion (Once)
  • Three successful title defenses
  • Winner of the Performance of the Evening Award (three times) against Anthony Johnson , Volcan Ozdemir and Stipe Miocic ^{[24] [32] [33]}
  • Winner of the "Best fight of the evening" (two times) against John Jones , Alexander Gustafsson ^{[34] [35]}
• Strikeforce
  • Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Winner
• King of the cage
  • KOTC Heavyweight Champion (Once)
• Xtreme MMA
  • XMMA Heavyweight Champion (Once)
  • One successful title defense
• Sherdog
  • 2014 Beatdown of the Year vs. Dan Henderson , at UFC 173 ^[36] .
  • 2014 All-Violence 3rd Team ^[37] .
• ESPS
  • Upset of the Month (2011) vs. Antoniu Silva .
• MMAJunkie.com
  • Best Fight of the Month (January 2015) vs. John Jones ^[38]
  • The best fight of the month (October 2015) against Alexander Gustafsson ^[39] .

• The current world mixed martial arts champions

• Daniel Cormier - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
• Daniel Cormier - profile on the International Wrestling Database
• UFC Website Profile
• Cormier, Daniel (Eng.) - professional battle statistics on the Sherdog website
• (unavailable link) Profile of Daniel Cormier in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame