UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has an interesting relationship with MMA fans.
The light heavyweight champion is slated to take on heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic this summer at the UFC 226 pay-per-view event.
DC has already gone on record by stating that he plans to wrap up his career next year and at this stage of his career, the champ has seemed to give up on the idea that he can change fan perceptions of him.
However, it does believe that it all happened during his beef with rival and former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones.
“I don’t know what I did,” Cormier said during a media tour (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “I didn’t really do anything. I did the exact same thing. They decide when they like you and when they don’t.”
“When I went out there that first time and they booed me with Jon [Jones], I just played the bad guy,” Cormier said. “I will say all the stuff you hate me saying. You hate that I make fun of [Jon Jones] for his addictions? I will say every one of those addictions and I’ll list them all out. Before it was like, I don’t think they’ll boo me for it. Okay, you’ll boo me for it? You don’t like that? I’d kind of feel out what people liked and didn’t like. And the things I got the most hate, on Twitter, I would start to say it in public. If you want me to be your bad guy, I’ll be your bad guy. I just kind of gauge it.”
UFC 226 is set to take place on Saturday, July 6, 2018, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
“If it’s not genuine, people can see through that,” Cormier said. “If I start putting on that I hate Stipe Miocic, after going to Cleveland and doing a show on him and being around him and being friends with him, all of a sudden I hate him, people will be like ‘what, that makes no sense.’ That might actually turn people off from watching the fight, ‘this is too fake I can’t deal with it.’ I want to give a true accounting of what I am and what Stipe and I’s relationship truly is.”
“People just decide what they want to do,” Cormier said. “Going into the Jones fight, it was all boos. And then going into Boston, it was all cheers. Then when I went to that press conference in Brooklyn, cheers. They put me on the camera and for the first time, people yelled positive stuff. Usually they just boo me. I didn’t care. I just get used to it.”
“You’re never going to tell people how to feel,” Cormier said. “I used to try to do that. If you told me there’s something you don’t like, I’m going to harp on that thing. I want a reaction. Whether it is positive or negative, I just want you to not be indifferent. As long as you care, that’s good.”
What are your thoughts on DC’s comments? Do you like or dislike him? Sound off in the comment section below.
