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The Baddest Man On The Planet, Stipe Miocic, is opening up after both Daniel Cormier and UFC President Dana White said their side to the story.
This, by the way, is not the first time the Heavyweight champion has had a difference of opinion with either man. And it's a safe bet, it won't be close to the last time either.
Once the UFC started putting its wheels into motion to restart, Dana White publicly said that if any fighter wanted to stay away during the pandemic, it would be okay and that he understands. That is apparently unless you are a champion.
At least a male champion, because there was no raking over the coals when Amanda Nunes said she would not fight this weekend, due to no proper training camp.
Stipe Miocic has been quite busy during the global pandemic as a firefighter and EMT. The humble and down to earth Miocic would easily win in the court of public opinion on his reasoning for not wanting to fight now. And as we all know, a groundswell of public opinion can make or change decisions in a heartbeat.
The champion is willing to fight DC in his final fight, but also can't properly train as Ohio is in a State lockdown making it impossible to get into a gym. And he went to social media to plead his case.
All this happened after Dana White while speaking with BarStool Sports, said that stripping Stipe Miocic of the belt is a possibility. On the UFC Heavyweight Champion, White continued to poke the bear by saying,
"Listen, fights can happen right now. You either want to fight or you don't".
The 37-year-old Stipe Miocic isn't getting any younger either and knows whether he sends Cormier into retirement on a loss, or win, there's fresh hungry meat coming for the belt.
Both Francis Ngannou and Jairzinho Rozenstruik had wished their fight this coming weekend would be for an interim title with Stipe Miocic's situation. Of course, any title fight guarantees the fighters more money. This would be the UFC's only reason to hold it back from happening, although they tend to give out interim belts.
The winner between this weekend's heavyweight fight even without it being for a partial strap will almost certainly be Stipe Miocic's next opponent after DC. Cormier, for his part, is itching to get the trilogy done so that he can say goodbye to the octagon as a fighter. The last time they fought, Stipe Miocic evened up the war 1-1 by getting a TKO win at UFC 241.
The trilogy was put on hold first due to Stipe Miocic's eye injury and DC teasing he wanted his last fight to be versus Brock Lesnar; which never materialized.
Miocic might not want his management team to do a new deal when this one is over because of this either. Someone of his can only take so much unnecessary ridicule before looking elsewhere.
Somewhere in California, you can imagine Scott Coker is chatting about this with the head honchos at Paramount. Who knows; with Michael Chandler admitting he's going to look into free agency, the UFC might be interested in another trade.
