Daniel Cormier says coaches begged him to wrestle Stipe Miocic, but he didn’t listen

Daniel Cormier says that his coaches told him to wrestle against Stipe Miocic in the main event of UFC 241 but he chose not to do that and it ended up costing him the fight.

Cormier suffered a fourth-round TKO loss to Miocic and lost the UFC heavyweight title in the process. After the event was over, he spoke to the media and reflected on the loss.

“(Wrestling) was the strategy,” Cormier said. “That’s probably the biggest letdown, is how I let my coaches down. They were begging me to wrestle, and that’s probably the most disappointing thing. I didn’t do what I was trained to do, and I feel like I let my coaches down.”

Cormier explained why he chose to stay the course and keep the fight on the feet despite having the perceived wrestling advantage in the fight. Keep in mind Cormier knocked out Miocic last year at UFC 226 and was having plenty of success with his striking for the first three rounds against Miocic.

“I think when you start finding success and landing things, you just kind of fall in love with it,” Cormier said. “It feels like the Alexander Gustafsson fight (at UFC 192) all over again, when I wrestled a lot in the first round then for the last four rounds I just didn’t. (My coaches) were begging me to do it then. But tonight I actually paid the ultimate price for not listening to my coaches. I’m usually pretty good about doing that.”

Cormier will now head back home to see his family and see what decision they make for his fighting future. At this point, DC has not said one way or another if he will retire or keep fighting. But it definitely sounds like he has regrets about how the rematch with Miocic played out, and that he would do things differently if he had a chance to go back in time.

Were you surprised Daniel Cormier didn’t wrestle more against Stipe Miocic?