Daniel Cormier retains Light-Heavyweight belt by rear naked choke – exactly how he predicted it would go
Daniel Cormier has defended his UFC Light-Heavyweight belt in impressive fashion as he closed out the fight early this morning in exactly the way he had predicted, via rear naked choke, in the second round.
In the first round however, things didn’t go quite to plan as his opponent Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson unleashed a devastating kick to the face, crushing DC’s nose in the process and rocked the champ for a few seconds. ‘Rumble’ couldn’t take advantage though as Cormier reverted back to his wrestling background and tied up the heavy-hitter in numerous clinches to see out the round.
The second round was all Cormier. The champ got his opponent to the ground early on and after landing numerous strikes to Rumble’s skull, the inevitable happened, Rumble rolled onto his stomach allowing Cormier to slip his arm under the chin and the tap came soon after, exactly the way the now 19-1 light-heavyweight predicted before the fight.
In an interview with MMAFighting earlier this week, Cormier said:
Anthony Johnson knows - he knows who the boss is in this situation. He’s a tough guy, he’s a guy that has a lot of punching power and is very fast, but I was watching the first fight again, (where Cormier also choked out Johnson) and Anthony Johnson was ready for me to finish him in the second round, the time just ran out. He tried to roll over to his stomach but I wouldn’t let him. Watch it. When I cut him, he tried to roll over to his belly and give me his back to choke him out, but I wouldn’t let him. I cross-faced him back down and I elbowed him some more, time ran out. In the third round, the same thing. [I] threw the punches, gave him one last shot to knock me out and when he realised it wasn’t happening, [he] turned over, gave me his back and let me choke him. He knows how this goes.
Talking about the future, Cormier was keen to focus on Jon Jones, who was also cage-side for the fight.
The thing about the whole Jones thing is that, I’d always fight Jon Jones. I’ve always said that… I’ve been here, this whole time, I’ve been here. Jon Jones is the one that hasn’t been here forced to fight again. When I lost to him in January in 2015, I knew we’d fight again. I knew that this was just the beginning of a series of fights that him and I would have. I said it in the build-up, I said that this is just number one, we will have multiple fights, but we just haven’t been able to come together so of course I’d fight Jon Jones.