A knockdown in the second round was all that truly separated Stipe Miocic from Daniel Cormier in their third and final fight. It was a professional contest from start to finish. By which I mean the two heavyweights dispassionately kicked the shit out of each other for the better part of half an hour. Stipe retained his title by a surprisingly wide margin on two of the scorecards to become the most consistent heavyweight champion of all time. Cormier emerged from the fight a proud, disappointed, half-blind legend.
I have often wondered about Cormier’s unwillingness to engage Stipe in a wrestling-heavy fight. He has shown throughout the trilogy, as he did in the first round here, that he is perfectly capable of taking Stipe down. Maybe his hesitation stems from Stipe’s ability to quickly get up. At some point during the broadcast Dominick Cruz made the point that at 41 and carrying more flab at heavyweight, such an approach would take too much energy out of Cormier to be considered a sensible approach. Whatever the reason, I’m glad he preferred to stand and strike. It made for a wonderful fight filled with dangerous exchanges.
Cormier seemed to have better balance than in either of the first two encounters and he threw every strike with much meaner intentions. Every punch was intended to knock Stipe unconscious, every kick meant to break bones. If the noticeably svelte champion wasn’t so light on his feet and moving in such educated patterns, he would have been tenderised rather quickly. Cormier punctuated the first with a booming right hand that wobbled Stipe, who took half-a-moment to recover from a blow that would put most of us in intensive care.
Stipe has a tap-dancer’s feet and a miner’s jaw. He operated on the periphery, feinting his way in with every part of his body. He wanted to land his shots and get out of there. But coming from a man of his size and thrown with such sound technique, his punches had a visible impact on the shorter, wider challenger. The sequence that led to the knockdown in the second was beautiful. Stipe feinted with a left hook to the body which prompted Cormier to pull away. Stipe pursued, switching to southpaw and hurling a succession of right hooks after him. The first missed. The rest landed. Cormier took a tumble against the fence and scrambled for a single leg. Stipe pressed his hips forward and pinned him there, punching down on his exposed head until the round ended. If it hadn’t, I’m not sure how Cormier would have been able to get up.
No fight between these two would be complete without eye-pokes. While Stipe had been the main recipient in the past and shipped more here, Cormier suffered by far the worst of all at the end of the third round. The replay showed Stipe’s outstretched finger penetrating Cormier’s eye-socket deep enough to suggest he was drilling for oil. The effects were immediate. Cormier’s left eye puffed up and his iris became suddenly interested in the bridge of his nose. It stayed that way for the rest of the fight; Cormier doing his best Billy Madison impression as more and more right hands flew into his compromised side. I have no idea how he finished the fight, let alone landing as many crunching blows as he did in the final two rounds.
The deciding factors in the first two fights were minimised by each man. The underhook-right hand combination that shockingly knocked Stipe out two years ago was still a natural weapon for Cormier. However, this time Stipe managed to either shove Cormier away, walk him to the fence before the punch could be triggered, or simply take the shot. It’s a puzzling thing. The punch that laid him flat in the first fight seemed only to tickle him this time. The left hooks to the body that regained Stipe his title were present but not overwhelming. Stipe would threaten with them as entries to other strikes just as often as he would throw them in earnest. Cormier didwell to block or smother many of them but still shipped a fair few.
Overall this fight not only impressed me for the high level of skill on display but for the dignity with which Miocic and Cormier conducted themselves. They slapped hands to begin most rounds, even hugging before the last, then eased into their stances without a thought to the threat of a cheap shot being thrown. Eye-pokes and low-blows were given and received without malice, these being two veterans of amiable character who accepted such occurrences as unfortunate by-products of an honest contest.
After the fight I imagine Cormier was concerned about his eye, irritated by the judges, and angry at whoever compiled the post-fight highlights. That reel made it seem as if he was never in the fight. But he should have nothing but kind things to think about his performance. In his post-fight interview he was rather hard on himself, citing his coming second in the two series of fights that may most be remembered about his career. I hope history will be kinder to him. Let’s not forget, he twice fought a once-in-a-lifetime fighter in Jon Jones and was grossly undersized in his trilogy with Stipe. Those factors don’t change the results, but they matter. He dominated everybody else he faced. You have only to look at his record to see how many killers he has made look average in the octagon.
What can you say about Stipe? Nothing except that he’s the man. He has reestablished himself as the dominant heavyweight in the premier MMA organisation in the world. His reputation is secure. He might want to consider calling it a day. He’s on top. It’s the dream of all save the most sadistic fighters to go out that way.
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