LAS VEGAS — Daniel Cormier stood backstage, moments away from making the most important walk of his athletic career.
He'd trained for this moment since the day his local high school wrestling coach pulled him off the street and tossed him into a wrestling room, where his life would change forever. Through all of the heartbreak, through the failed attempts at winning Olympic gold, Cormier had just one thing on his mind: being the best in the world.
He had never reached his goal in wrestling. He was famously forced to pull out of the Olympics in 2008 after a weight cut gone bad. But finally, he had his chance.
It is perhaps a fighter cliche, but Cormier had trained harder than ever. He was ready. And he believed in himself and in his skills.
Tonight, he would win the UFC light heavyweight championship from the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He'd never been more confident of anything in his life.
And so he paced back and forth, deep in the bowels of the MGM Grand Garden Arena, waiting for his music to hit the loudspeakers. His closed his eyes and played the fight out in his head. He imagined the way things would go. He had imagined this night for years and now, the time was finally here.
"It was just like, finally. I get to do this fight," Cormier told Bleacher Report in an exclusive interview. "Finally, it's the moment I've been waiting for. Let's go. Let's do it."
Cormier walked to the Octagon. Jones followed. Bruce Buffer made the official announcements, and the fight began.
A myth about Jones was quickly dispelled. People told Cormier the lightweight champion had no punching power; Jones has never knocked an opponent out, and that is apparently all you need to know in order to pass judgment on whether someone punches hard or not. Early in the fight, Jones landed a punch on Cormier, and the challenger thought: Well, that was a pretty hard punch.
"He hit me with a punch early. It was either a left hook or a superman punch-type left hand. And I was like, 'That was a lot harder than I expected,'" Cormier said. "I didn't expect him to hit that hard. But he hits pretty hard. It didn't hurt me, but I actually felt it more than I thought I would."
Cormier's game plan, rehearsed in countless practices at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California, was simple: get inside Jones' mammoth 84.5" reach and do it quickly. Jones is a master of all mixed martial arts skills, but no tool in his arsenal is more effective than his understanding of his length and how to use it. For Cormier to stand a chance of winning, he had to close the gap and make Jones work inside, where Cormier's team felt he would have an advantage.
Cormier was able to execute his game plan. He closed distance well and spent plenty of time up close and personal with Jones.
"I thought I was able to do everything I intended on doing. I did all the things we prepared to do. I think we put a lot more emphasis on his length in training, and distance wasn't an issue for me," Cormier said. "I was able to get in pretty close fairly easy. He did a good job of using his reach, but it wasn't hard to close the distance on him."
As the fight wore on, Cormier began scoring the fight in his head. He could feel himself landing punches on Jones, and he felt Jones doing damage to him.
"I thought we were both doing really good damage, so I thought 'This is real competitive,'" Cormier said.
In the fourth round, Cormier decided to cruise. He figured he was winning two rounds to one (giving himself the second and third rounds) and thought he could give away the fourth round but seal the victory by winning the fifth round.
"I figured that even if he won the fourth round, all I needed to do was win the fifth round and I would win the championship," he said. "I thought those rounds were pretty clear in my favor, but obviously they weren't. After watching it back, they were very competitive. They were close rounds. I thought I won the second and third rounds, and he won the first, fourth and fifth."
At the end of the fight, Jones was awarded a unanimous-decision win. All three judges scored the fight 49-46 in his favor. Cormier was obviously and visibly crushed and took several days off before watching a replay of the fight.
What he saw on tape was both discouraging and encouraging at the same time. He still felt he'd won the second and third rounds, with Jones taking the others. He noticed that Jones put a heavy emphasis on delivering strikes to Cormier's body early in the fight, and that investment paid off in later rounds.
"Kicks, punches. He did really good work on the body. He made that investment early, and it caught up to me in the fifth round. It allowed him to dictate the clinches. The clinch is a position I usually always win," Cormier said. "He was able to win those because he wore me down with his body work early."
Cormier also noticed Jones' superior usage of wrist control, which allowed the champion to further control the clinch.
"I can't let him do that again," he said.
Another Jones myth that was dispelled for Cormier: the idea of Jones being a dirty fighter.
"That's him being a competitor. I think I do the same thing. Early in the fight, I grabbed the inside of his glove as we were clinching. And then he started doing the same thing to me, but he did it over and over," he said. "But I don't knock him for that. We are both trying to find an advantage."
Cormier also felt that Jones' controversial oblique kicks—straight and side kicks thrown at his opponent's knees—were overblown. He'd prepared to defend the kicks with a slight lift of his lead leg and felt he did a good job of executing that defense in the fight.
"If you prepare for them, they aren't that big of a deal. He never really straightened my leg. It's not Jon's job to go away from a move that has been so effective for him. Learn to defend it," Cormier said. "To me, that leg kick is not dirty. It really did nothing to me, and I've got bad knees. Just by lifting your leg and not being so flat-footed, it doesn't allow him to hyperextend your knees.
"I don't think he's dirty. I think when he ended up poking my face, that was just an accident. It only happened once," he said. "I don't think he's a dirty fighter. I think he's a guy looking for advantages, just like I was."
After the loss, Cormier took time off from the gym. He resumed his duties for Fox Sports and found the time to film All About That Cake, a spoof on Meghan Trainor's popular song "All About That Bass." After completing the filming, Cormier nearly pulled the plug on the video entirely.
"I was like, this is kinda bad. But then I decided it was fun. I enjoyed doing it," he said. When the video aired at the World MMA Awards, Cormier squirmed in his seat, expecting the audience to think the video was horrible. Instead, they roared with laughter.
A few days later, the producers of the awards show posted the video on YouTube. The video went viral, and Cormier found himself at the center of a smash hit. His daughter, a fan of the original song, now walks around the Cormier house singing her father's version instead.
On Monday, Cormier returned to the gym to resume training alongside partners Luke Rockhold and Cain Velasquez. Despite UFC President Dana White's statement that he has an opponent in mind for Cormier, the Louisiana native has not been contacted about a potential fight. He believes, however, that it will be either Glover Teixeira, Ryan Bader or Rashad Evans.
The loss to Jones still stings, but it also made Cormier even more sure of one thing: that he has the skills to beat Jones and that he'll do so if given another chance.
"Jon won that fight. But after the fight, I have no doubt in my mind that I can beat that man. Nothing has changed. If we fought again, I feel like I will be even more confident that I can get the job done," Cormier said. "He did not beat me. He won the fight. He did not beat me up, and I did not beat him up. We were in a very competitive, hard fight. And if anyone believes that it was anything different, go back and watch it again and you'll feel a little different after watching it."
