A couple of weeks ago, Daniel Cormier tallied up votes that he got from Twitter and decided it was Volkan Oezdemir who should get the next title shot. Of course, Oezdemir accepted the gesture in ‘no time’ flat. Even though Cormier used the fans own comments to decide his opponent, there was still criticism of why Alexander Gustafsson didn’t get another shot at the belt. Cormier took to his Talk and Talker podcast to tell the world simply, that it’s just business.
“It was me [who decided to do the voting polls]. I was like man, let’s see where the interest is. Look, there are a lot of people that want to see me fight Alexander Gustafsson. And I would fight Alexander again. Y’know, he’s a tough guy. Another guy who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. But it’s a fight we’ve seen before. Truth of the matter is, that fight with Alex in all the fights that I’ve done — the two [Jon] Jones’ fights that have done tremendous at the box office, the pay-per-views. The Anderson Silva fight obviously at UFC 200 did amazing pay-per-views. The two Rumble [Johnson] fights did really well pay-per-view wise. The only fight that I’ve truly, truly, struggled with was Gustafsson.”
Oct3.2015
Daniel Cormier makes the 1st defense of his UFC Light Heavyweight title,
when he def. Alexander Gustafsson in a thriller pic.twitter.com/sVlmG6FCCI
— MMA History Today (@MMAHistoryToday) October 3, 2017
“We did no business. So, revisiting that [Gustafsson] fight right now would be something that would push me competitively because he is who he is but — I keep getting stuff like, ‘I want to fight Volkan [Oezdemir] because it’s easier, but Gustafsson is the money fight.’ Well, the reality is Gustafsson really isn’t the money fight. Even when he fought Jon, the pay-per-views did very bad. He just has this cult following. When they did the EA Sports vote, he got put on the cover of the video game, but then it doesn’t equate to pay-per-view buys. Which sucks. Because if it did, I’d be like, ‘Hey, put Gustafsson up there right now.’”
It’s always surprising when fans declare that an MMA fighter — a person who steps in cages to scrap for a living — is scared of another fighter. Especially, if they have already fought and beaten the fighter in question. Listen, we all love Alexander Gustafsson. He became a fan-favorite overnight with his epic battle with Jon Jones. However, according to Cormier this doesn’t translate to being an actual pay-per-view draw. Not only that, he’s gotten three chances at a title. So, it’s time for a fresh match-up.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/6/2017.