Stipe Miocic’s health is rapidly improving and the UFC heavyweight champion says he is ready to put the final nail in the coffin of Daniel Cormier’s career.
All signs point to a third and final encounter between Miocic (19-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) and Cormier (22-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) going down this summer. It’s what the UFC brass wants, it’s what “DC” wants, but the hangup has come from the champion, who has been dealing with a lingering eye injury stemming from the previous fight between the pair at UFC 241 in August.
Miocic has made it clear all along that he intends to be patient with his recovery. It’s taken some time, but he’s apparently now in a good place.
“Eye is really good actually,” Miocic told TMZ. “It’s healed up, it’s getting better every day and getting back to training slowly.”
In recent months Miocic has teased that he’s not all that interested in fighting Cormier again next. He’s mentioned a rematch with Francis Ngannou, and even challenged boxing champion Tyson Fury along the way.
Now that it’s real, though, he said he will defend his title against whoever the UFC deems to be, and that’s Cormier.
“It’s looking like summer,” Miocic said. “I think a lot of these fight (dates) are booked up, so probably about summertime. Yeah, (the Cormier trilogy is) what the UFC wants. I’m not the matchmaker. If I was the matchmaker, I wouldn’t be fighting.”
A final showdown between Miocic and Cormier will cap off one of the great trilogies in UFC history, and certainly at heavyweight. Cormier, then the light heavyweight champ, won the initial meeting by first-round knockout at UFC 226 in July 2018, then Miocic reclaimed the belt with a fourth-round knockout in the rematch at UFC 241.
Cormier has said that, win or lose, the next fight will be his last. The goal on his side is to go out on a high, but for Miocic, it’s to defend his title and hand Cormier a loss he’ll have to sit on for the rest of his life.
“It sucks for him,” Miocic said. “He’s going to lose again.”
