Superfight Announced: Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier

By
Gregory LaFountain
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The Two Champs Will Coach TUF, Fight At UFC 226

When the UFC’s three biggest superstars (Conor McGregor, Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey) all have uncertain futures fighting in the octagon, it’s time to pull out the big guns.  And that’s exactly what the UFC did by announcing a superfight between two of their most dominate champions.

Heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic will look to defend his belt against light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 226 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV.  The UFC is promoting the fighters by having them coach against one another in the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Both men fought at UFC 220 last Saturday and both defended their belts.  Cormier (20-1-1) was the co-main event and TKO’d Volkan Oezdemir in the second round.  Cormier will look become the second fighter in UFC history (McGregor being the first) to hold two belts simultaneously and only the fourth (B.J. Penn, Georges St. Pierre, Randy Couture and McGregor) to win a belt in two different weight classes.

Miocic won his fight at UFC 220 via unanimous decision over Francis Ngannou.  Miocic mixed up his boxing with his wrestling to wear the heavy-hitting Ngannou down round by round.  With the victory, Miocic became the first heavyweight in UFC history to defend the belt three times.

Don’t expect this to be the only superfight the UFC puts together in 2018.  With McGregor not committing to a date of returning to the octagon to defend his lightweight belt, Jon Jones likely facing a suspension for a failed drug test and Ronda Rousey losing two fights in a row and appearing to be leaning towards retirement, the UFC will have to put together big fights to get fans to buy the pay-per-views.

There are two other possible superfights the UFC will look to make this year.  Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw have expressed interest in fighting each other.  Johnson (27-2-1) has cleared out the flyweight division, defending his belt an all-time UFC record eleven times.  Dillashaw (15-3) would most likely go down to 125 lbs to fight Johnson for the belt.

The other superfight the UFC will look to make this year is women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg against bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.  Cyborg (19-1-1) appears to be the most dominate woman fighter in MMA history.   Nunes (15-4) has wins over big names like Miesha Tate and Rousey.  Cyborg seems to want the fight, tweeting this earlier this week.

These are fights fans are wanting to see and with no clear number one contenders in each of the division where the superfights will take place, now is the perfect time to make them happen.  The UFC can’t wait too long.  Remember how they sat on putting Anderson Silva against Jones or Georges St. Pierre?  They waited and eventually those fights fell through for different reasons.

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