Daniel Cormier shocked by Dustin Poirier agreeing to fight Colby Covington; “Dude is an absolute fighter”

Former dual-weight UFC champion Daniel Cormier is surprised that Dustin Poirier is agreeing to fight Colby Covington.

Following his victory over Jorge Masvidal at UFC 272, Covington called out Poirier. The two have a history as former training partners and friends, but it would be hard to tell. During his callout, ‘Chaos’ took aim at Poirier’s wife and child.

Due to those personal comments, ‘The Diamond’ said that he would never fight Covington in the cage. His reasoning is that he wouldn’t want his foe to profit off of the things that he’s said about his family.

Despite those previous comments, Poirier agreed to fight Covington earlier this week. On The MMA Hour, he later confirmed that he was serious about fighting the welterweight and that it wasn’t just talking. The comments came as a surprise to much of the MMA community, as Poirier previously turned the fight down.

The comments also came as a shock to one Daniel Cormier. The former dual-weight champion discussed a fight between Dustin Poirier and Colby Covington on the DC & RC podcast. During the discussion with co-host Ryan Clark, Cormier gave praise to Poirier for accepting the fight.

Image via @colbycovmma on Instagram (photographer not listed)

“I love it, I never thought Dustin would take that fight. When you look at it on paper, Colby is just going to try to wrestle him. As we saw with Khabib [Nurmagomedov], Eddie Alvarez back in the day, Dustin can struggle with the wrestling at times. He has improved tremendously since he became the world champion.”

Daniel Cormier continued, “But, for him to say ‘Hey, I’m down’, it just tells me that a lot of the other matchups that Dustin wants aren’t coming to fruition. The dude is an absolute fighter. He’s like, ‘You know what man, if nobody else wants to compete, I’ll go fight this dude. Even if it doesn’t seem like this isn’t the best matchup for me.”

What do you think about Daniel Cormier’s comments about Dustin Poirier vs. Colby Covington?