Being Daniel Cormier is a pretty thankless job.
That’s the major takeaway from watching the crowd shower Cormier with boos Saturday at UFC 200, as the light heavyweight champion rolled over Anderson Silva via unanimous decision in a hastily made non-title fight.
The negative crowd reaction was no a surprise but was still a disappointment. Through no fault of his own, one of the UFC’s consummate nice guys appears to have grown shockingly unpopular lately.
So much so he’s getting numb to it.
“I can’t really pay attention to that anymore," Cormier said of the boos at the post-fight press conference. "The first time it happened I kind of got angry. I was upset and I tried to explain it—it just didn’t make any sense. But now, I can’t really try and dictate people’s emotions.”
By all accounts, Cormier is one of the best-liked, most honorable guys in the UFC. The former captain of the U.S. Olympic wrestling team has amassed an 18-1 professional record (7-1 in the Octagon) in two weight classes despite not transitioning to MMA until the age of 30.
He’s won championship gold and has also managed to craft himself into one of the more nimble and easy-to-watch television analysts who regularly cover the UFC for Fox Sports.
Yet most days, it feels like Cormier just can’t win.
He deserves better, but so long as he remains champion in the crumbling, suddenly Jon Jones-free 205-pound division, he may not get it.
Take his overall UFC 200 experience for example.
This was meant to finally be Cormier’s big-money rematch with Jones, who handed him his only professional defeat back at UFC 182. The second installment of their bitter feud has experienced delays. First by Jones’ suspension in mid-2015 following a hit-and-run incident, and then when a leg injury to Cormier scrapped a planned meeting at UFC 197.
Saturday night was supposed to be Cormier’s chance to avenge that defeat, to finally come into his own as champion and earn a hefty, seven-figure payday at the same time. Late Wednesday night, however, Jones was pulled from the bout after failing an out-of-competition drug test administered back on June 16.
Immediately after the news broke, even as Jones was nowhere to be seen, Cormier showed up for an emotional, impromptu news conference that began well after 9 p.m. PT. He was in the middle of his weight cut and obviously heartbroken. He didn’t have to face the media, not right then, but he did it anyway:
Jones’ sudden departure could’ve been a total loss for Cormier—financial and otherwise. In the simple interest of keeping him on the card (and booking him a promotable fight) the UFC dredged up the 41-year-old Silva by Thursday afternoon.
Fresh from gallbladder surgery, the former middleweight champion and consensus greatest MMA fighter of all time flat out admitted he hadn’t really been training. Silva needed no weight cut prior to tipping the scales Friday at a shockingly light 198 pounds. He even kept his shirt on for proceedings.
Seeing him looking skinny with a touch of gray in his stubble was as good a reminder as any that it has been a long time since Silva was the terrifying knockout artist who held the UFC in a grip of fear for the better part of a decade.
Another unsurprising thing: He received a hero’s welcome from fans.
The mighty roar that erupted when Silva’s face appeared on the arena’s big screen early on fight night was perhaps the first clue this was going to be another unrewarding booking for Cormier.
The light heavyweight champ likely weighed close to 230 pounds after rehydrating for their bout. He gave up a few inches in height and reach to Silva but had all the other advantages—stylistic as well as physical.
Faced with the late change of opponent and the entrance of an aging but still dangerous striker, Cormier opted for an admittedly conservative game plan. He took Silva down more or less at will during their 15-minute bout, grinding out a lopsided judges’ verdict (three 30-26 scorecards).
The crowd voiced its displeasure early and often, though some fans on social media were sympathetic to Cormier’s situation:
I don’t get why people boo Daniel Cormier. He’s a genuinely good dude and he wrestles. Why would he stand up with the best striker ever.
— Tyler Miranda (@TylerJMiranda) July 10, 2016
The fight had its interesting moments too. During the fleeting times when Silva was upright and had some space to work with, he seemed to remember he had once been the greatest striker to grace the Octagon. He fired off punches, jumping kicks and knees—even one of the patented front kicks he used to fell Vitor Belfort back at UFC 126.
Late in the fight, he stung Cormier with a kick to the body. It landed hard enough that the larger man briefly grimaced and gripped his side. No matter, though. It was late enough in the bout that Cormier was able to bull Silva against the cage and salt away the victory.
Later, Cormier conceded he knew the stakes were too high to take many chances.
“The reality is, it would have been catastrophic if I would have lost tonight,” Cormier told reporters. "I would still be the [light heavyweight] champion but would have lost to the guy that would have went down to middleweight and challenged for the belt. I did what I needed to do.”
To add insult to injury, it was reported Cormier had to take a fairly steep pay cut in the wake of Jones’ removal. As Les Carpenter wrote in the Guardian, it all added up to an impossible predicament:
What value is there in doing the right thing? Cormier probably should have left UFC 200’s lineup the moment the organization’s president Dana White told him about Jones’s failed test. But doing so would have damaged the card in the UFC’s signature event. Cormier didn’t want to do that, so he let the UFC stick him with Silva and took everybody’s wrath.
...
The fans did not enjoy seeing their hero [Silva] treated this poorly even if it was the right tactic for Cormier to employ. They probably didn’t know that Jones’s positive test forced UFC officials to cut Cormier’s pay for the fight from $1m to $500,000.
And you know what? Things aren’t going to get any easier for him, either.
It felt as though fans turned their backs on Cormier the moment he defeated Anthony Johnson at UFC 187 to win the vacant 205-pound title. It had been just three-and-a-half months since his loss to Jones in January 2015 and just one month since the UFC had stripped Jones of the title and put him on extended timeout.
None of that was Cormier’s fault. All he did was go on being the best light heavyweight on the UFC’s active roster. All he did was win every fight the UFC booked for him except one.
That defeat to Jones, however, continues to loom large on Cormier’s resume. The fact is, some fans aren’t going to view him as the legitimate 205-pound champion unless he can get that loss back one day. Perhaps the worst news of all is at Cormier’s advanced age (37), he might never get the chance if the UFC hands Jones the maximum, two-year suspension after his positive drug test.
If Jones goes on ice for that long, Cormier will be nearly 40 before Saturday’s would-be opponent is eligible to return.
In the interim, Cormier will merely be the champion of a light heavyweight division in steep decline.
At the last count, there were just shy of 40 205-pound fighters listed on the UFC’s official website. That leaves light heavy second only to flyweight as the company’s least populated division. Without Jones around, it feels like there just isn’t much there to get excited about.
And that, obviously, is yet another enormous bummer for Cormier.
A man this highly regarded and a fighter this talented ought to be afforded the biggest fights and the best things in life.
Yet Cormier’s immediate future appears stuck on repeat.
He’ll be spinning his wheels waiting for Jones to return—all the while fighting, inexplicably, for the fans’ respect.
