Why Daniel Cormier shouldn't get comfortable as UFC light heavyweight champ

LAS VEGAS – The best fighter in the world was nowhere to be found on Saturday when his archrival claimed the crown he’d put a stranglehold on for the last four years.

Jon Jones was stripped of the UFC’s light heavyweight championship in April and suspended indefinitely after being accused in a hit-and-run accident in Albuquerque, N.M., in which a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm.

With Jones sorting through his problems, Daniel Cormier ascended to his throne by submitting Anthony Johnson in the third round of the main event Saturday at UFC 187 before 12,615 screaming fans at the MGM Grand Garden.

Just five months earlier, Cormier wept openly as he sat through what had to be, for him, an agonizingly difficult press conference, listening to Jones recount his victory at UFC 182.

Cormier was all smiles on Saturday, except for when Ryan Bader pulled a low-rent move from the pro wrestling playbook and stormed the dais in an attempt to thrust himself into the title picture.

It was ridiculous, but it hardly detracted from one of the best nights in UFC history. The main card was one of the best the UFC has put on for years, and in the final two fights, championships were won with impressive performances.

Cormier fought a brilliant tactical fight, avoiding Johnson’s massive right handsfor the most part and using his grappling to claim the belt that became vacant when UFC president Dana White stripped Jones following the accident in New Mexico.

And though Cormier’s title may come with an asterisk to many, it does not to the two men who mean the most, Cormier and White.

“See what’s sitting there? That’s a gold belt and that thing’s reserved for the UFC champion,” Cormier said following his third-round submission via rear naked choke. “I didn’t disqualify myself from the competition. Jon did. Jon is the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. We all know that. But he’s disqualified himself from the competition right now and I am the champion. I’m very proud of what I accomplished tonight. I fought a very tough guy who deserved to be there.”

White also had no reservation about proclaiming Cormier his champion. He had the requisite praise for Jones and said, “I’m a big believer that to be the man, you have to beat the man.”

But much like Cormier, he said Jones didn’t defend the belt as a result of his own actions.

“I’ll be honest with you,” White said. “I think this whole situation, losing the title and whatnot is going to light a fire under Jon and motivate him to get his business handled. But Cormier is the man. He took a heavy shot from a big puncher and he overcame it. Not only did he overcome it, he took him and finished him.

“Daniel is the champion and he deserves to be the champion. He took care of business against a very tough guy.”

Cormier is 36 and had been chasing a major championship for years. He has long been one of the best wrestlers in the world, and was a two-time American Olympian, even captaining the 2008 team in Beijing.

But for all his achievments, he couldn’t get the most important prize. He never won an NCAA Division I title. He couldn’t win an Olympic title. And in his previous bid at the UFC belt, he was drubbed by a man he dislikes intensely.

Seconds into the bout with Johnson, it looked like he might come up on the short end of things again.

Johnson winged an overhand right that clipped Cormier on the chin and dropped him for the first time in his career.

“If I stood in front of Anthony, this thing would be sitting on the other side of this press conference right now,” Cormier said, tapping his title belt. “He hit me so hard. Not only does he hit hard, he’s very fast. When he hit me, I fell and I turned around and behind me, I saw him coming, chasing me. I said, ‘Holy [expletive], he’s coming after me.’ I tried to grab him and he started punching me again.

“ … I wasn’t completely out, but I did get stunned. That was the first time I’ve ever been knocked down, in practice, competition, anything. I mean, I fell and in the moment, I rolled. I’m kind of chubby, so I rolled with the fall. I looked behind me and there was Anthony and I was like, ‘Holy cow, he’s right behind me.’ ”

Cormier made it to safety and, to use Johnson’s words, “wrestled the hell out of” him the rest of the fight.

It led him to the biggest win of his career and justified a journey that had him living on the brink of poverty for a long time.

He didn’t have the money to pay his bills at one point and needed a loan from his family, which he said had nothing.

But they gave him $575 which kept him afloat for another month until he received another sponsor’s check.

He was fighting in Strikeforce while living with his girlfriend, Salina Deleon, and their infant son in a 700-square foot apartment.

“We had no money and my family has no money down in Louisiana,” Cormier said. “I was so desperate, because we had no gas. We had nothing. We were on welfare and we called my parents. They don’t have much. But my mom, my dad, my brothers and my sister pulled together whatever they had. They had $575 and they sent it to Salina and I and it allowed us to get through the month until my next sponsorship check from CageFighter came.”

And he persevered through it all, including the loss to his most hated rival, to win a championship.

He knows he’ll have to face Jones at least once, and perhaps twice  to come out on top, he’ll need to control his emotions.

It was, he said, a competition on Saturday against Johnson. But he’d made it a fight in January against Jones. He vowed he won’t make the mistake any more.

So he didn’t care what anyone thought. He was the champion and he accepted the title without reservation.

“Don’t call me Daniel any more, any of you,” he said as he was leaving. “I want you all to address me from now on as Champion Cormier.”

He giggled and flipped the belt over his shoulder as he strode away.

It was a very different scene from the one five months earlier, when he trudged out of the room wiping tears from his eyes after getting routed by Jones.

He doesn’t need the validity of a win over Jones to legitimize his title reign, though he said he believes he’ll eventually get it.

He won a championship and overcame a lifetime of obstacles.

He doesn’t care how anyone else feels about it.

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