From Olympic pariah to UFC legend: Daniel Cormier's remarkable second act
Daniel Cormier snuck back into the Olympic Village, hoping his coaches and teammates were at Beijing’s Agricultural University Gymnasium a few miles down the road. He was determined to avoid them before he had to board the shuttle bus back to the airport. He didn’t want to talk about the harrowing weight-cut, which caused his kidneys to fail and landed him in hospital for four days. He didn’t want to explain to them why their team captain and America’s best hope for a wrestling medal had weighed in successfully, but failed to report to the center mat the next day at the 2008 Olympic Games.
“For a lot of people, I became a pariah,” said Cormier, who placed fourth at the 2004 Games and clinched a bronze medal at the 2007 World Championships, cementing him as a medal favorite. “In wrestling, you don’t miss the Olympic Games. I had to face all the people I’d let down. It was very difficult. I was so embarrassed.”
It will be nearly 12 years to that day when Cormier faces UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic on Saturday at UFC 252 in Las Vegas. Cormier, who is expecting his third child in October with his wife, Salina, said he is “certain” it will be his last fight, though UFC president Dana White has made overtures this week for the 41-year-old fighter to continue on afterward.
From outcast to standout, Cormier has made the most of his second act. He is 22-2 (with one no contest) in mixed martial arts and among the 2,000-plus athletes to touch bare feet to UFC canvas since 1993, he is one of only three fighters to earn championship titles in two weight divisions simultaneously. He has also been a commentator with the UFC for a decade and his ESPN analyst role will expand into other sports in the fall.
Cormier has found a home with MMA, but part of his heart will always remain with wrestling. It is wrestling that got him out of Lafayette, Louisiana, where sports was one of the few exit options for a Black kid. It is wrestling that got him a scholarship to Oklahoma State University, the mecca of college wrestling. And it was Cormier’s OSU roommate and MMA champion, Mohammed “King Mo” Lawal, who steered him toward the new sport.
Cormier still gets choked up talking about the 2008 Olympics. He blames himself and no one else for his lack of discipline. Cormier’s lifelong love for food put him in a constant tug-of-war with his own body, but he always found a way to lose the weight – even if it meant starving and dehydrating himself at the last minute to do so.
“The reality of it is I could have done things so much better in the buildup to the Games,” he said. “I played around with … my weight. I took things for granted that I shouldn’t have. Ultimately, it cost me at the biggest time it could have cost me.”
That morning in Beijing, Cormier woke up 6.5lb over the allowed weight, which was 2lb more than what he usually cut in a day. He was panicked, but spent the day with his coaches chipping away at the number between the mats and the sauna. On time, Cormier weighed in at 96kg (211.6lb) exactly. Then, began the recovery routine.
“The hour after weigh-ins was always terrible,” said Cormier. “I’d be pooping and vomiting and sweating, but I always knew that after about an hour I’d start feeling better. This time I was not feeling better.”
With his stomach and legs cramping up, he was sent to hospital, where his conditioned worsened. His organs were failing.
“The doctors told me I might never recover from this,” said Cormier. “It was bad, but I’m thinking I’m still going to wrestle the next day.”
A USA Wrestling official called Cormier that night to tell him he wouldn’t be allowed to wrestle. He wept in his hospital bed for four days straight.
When he returned home to Stillwater, Oklahoma, Cormier withdrew from the world. He threw sheets over the windows and played video games day and night to drown the deep disappointment he felt in himself. Over the next year, he gained 40lb. Many of his teammates and coaches still spoke to him. A few did not. An Olympic official finally called Cormier – not to discuss what had happened, but to ask that he refund them the money they’d spent on his airfare to the Games. The 28-yearold wrestler barely had enough for a package of spaghetti.
Any job opportunities teaching wrestling had dried up. No one wanted “the guy who didn’t wrestle at the Olympics” heading up their program. “There was no value in me at that point,” said Cormier. “No value in my name at all.”
His Olympic misstep affected many lives – not just his own. After he had weighed in that day, no alternate could
take his place, per Olympic regulations, so the match was forfeited. Cormier’s coaches were also scrutinized.
“I owe the biggest apology to Kevin Jackson,” Cormier said. “At the time, Kevin was the national team wrestling coach, a Black man, an Olympic and World champion. I truly believe my situation is why he wasn’t asked back to coach the national team.”
In 2009, Cormier took a job at a local TV station, selling advertising. He walked around town in his pressed beige slacks and button-down shirt, pitching business owners commercial ad-space ideas on the spot.
That could have been Cormier’s life, but adversity tended to motivate, not discourage him. He had lost his infant daughter in a car accident a year before the 2004 Olympics, then gone on to clinch fourth place in her honor. At his nephew’s basketball practice one day, Cormier climbed down the stands and slipped into a stall in the bathroom. He dialed the number another had given him and was on a plane days later headed for the AKA gym in San Jose,
California.
As he climbed the MMA ranks, Cormier set out to make amends with his past. He talked up wrestling wherever he could, and began coaching youngsters in San Jose in 2011. In 2013, when wrestling was in danger of being dropped from the 2016 Olympics, Cormier called USA Wrestling to make a donation.
“While I was at it, I asked them if I could settle up that airfare I owed them, as well,” said Cormier, who was met with a pause and then a laugh. “It was finally something we could bring up.”
At his UFC debut later that year, USA Wrestling allowed Cormier to wear their patch on his shorts, a small gesture that signaled some note of forgiveness. “It felt good,” said Cormier, “like the sport was coming back around to me.”
Last year, Cormier became the head wrestling coach at Gilroy High School in California. In his first season, Cormier coached his neighbor’s son, Chase Saldate, to a state title and a No1 national ranking. He encourages his athletes to eat to speed up their metabolism.
Cormier still struggles with the fact that one of the worst mistakes of his life was the key to his reinvention as a champion, a leader and eventually, a role model.
“I could never have done for wrestling and made people think and talk about wrestling on such a massive scale, if I’d wrestled in the Olympic Games,” Cormier said. “It’s so crazy to think that not getting to chase down that dream that I worked for for so long, turned out to be – as sad as it was – it allowed me to go chase something different.”