‘My journey has been a dream’
With a whopping 22 wins and just two loses in his entire UFC career, Daniel Cormier is undoubtedly one of the greatest fighters the sport has ever seen. And now, after holding records in multi-division championships and successfully defending it three-times, the 41-yearold American will walk to the octagon for one last time this Sunday for a final UFC 252 match against Stipe Miocic. Speaking about his ‘one last dance’, he says, “I am excited and I feel pumped up. It has been a great training camp, very taxing and gruelling, but I had a good time.”
Cormier knows that this would be his last walk to the octagon as a fighter in UFC. So, does this add an emotional pressure on him? “Pressure is always there.
You can’t put pressure on yourself if you don’t earn it. You earn it by putting yourself in situations where you are trying to accomplish something. So, when the moment comes, you don’t run from it, you embrace it. I earned this pressure and I like to live in it,” he says, adding, “When I walk to the octagon this time, my feeling is going to be the same. I am here to compete. I can’t walk in there thinking, ‘oh! This would be the last time I walk through the hall’. I am here to win a fight.”
Cormier admits that things have been “difficult” during this lockdown and he had to “approach the sport differently”. “I have worked hard to be where I am today. Most of my training was done at home during the lockdown. I couldn’t go to the gym like before, but we got it done,” he shares. Cormier is known for his sense of humour and