Video: UFC 170 co-headliners Daniel Cormier, Patrick Cummins trade heated words

With a camera on him, Dana White sat back and couldn’t help but smile.

It would be hard to blame him on Thursday night. The UFC president went from losing his co-main event Wednesday night, just 10 days before UFC 170, to putting together a new one Thursday morning.

But White was smiling because that new co-main event went from featuring a largely unknown prospect stepping in on short notice to featuring what has amounted to an instant grudge match with a new war of words that elevated in a little more than five minutes late Thursday on “FOX Sports Live.”

White appeared on the show with light heavyweight Daniel Cormier (13-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC), who is making his debut in the division, and his new opponent, Patrick Cummins (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC). Cummins on Thursday took a short-notice fight with Cormier the day after Rashad Evans (21-3-1 MMA, 14-3-1 UFC) had to pull out with a leg injury.

White said he woke up Thursday and heard about Cummins, a two-time All-American wrestler at Penn State who used to train with Cormier when Cormier was training for the Olympics. Cummins claimed he made Cormier cry and “broke him” when the two trained. Cummins, White said, was working at a coffee shop in California when White was trying to reach him – and lost his job for taking the call with White to accept the fight.

“I think Daniel would agree (I made him cry). We’re in training camp, we’re doing simulation matches. They paired us together.

“That’s the key right there. I was getting ready for the Olympics. Pat’s never been ‘the guy.’ I was ‘the guy.’ So it wasn’t just Pat Cummins who was wrestling me. It was Pat Cummins and everybody else coming in wrestling me. I was also going through a lot of personal things at the time.”

But when Cormier warned Cummins for bringing up personal issues outside of the wrestling room, Cummins mock-cried from the studio while Cormier appeared on a simulcast.

“Pat Cummins, you need to be careful what you say, bud,” Cormier said. “Things that happen in that wrestling room stay in that wrestling room. So not only have you crossed a line, you’ve completely put yourself in my crosshairs. You’re not Pat Cummins, a nice kid anymore. You’re a guy that I have to go into that octagon with, and you’re going to suffer for your words.”

Check out the entire segment with Cormier, Cummins and White in the video above.

And for the latest on UFC 170, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.