Daniel Cormier believes Zhang Weili might be the biggest betting favorite as a title challenger in UFC history
Daniel Cormier thinks the public will be betting on Zhang Weili over Carla Esparza when the two ultimately meet.
After Weili scored a vicious spinning backfist KO over Joanna Jedrzejczyk, all signs pointed to her becoming the next strawweight title challenger. Of course, the current champ in Esparza edged out a very lackluster fight over Rose Namajunas and now ‘DC’ believes the betting public will be heavily on Zhang Weili.
“She may be honestly the biggest challenger in terms of a favorite going into a fight that you’ve ever seen in the UFC,” Cormier said on his show DC & RC on ESPN. “She’s gonna be a massive favorite over Carla Esparza.”
According to Daniel Cormier, he doesn’t think Weili’s win was due to Jedrzejczyk being past her prime. Instead, he believes the former strawweight champ is just on another stage of her career and has improved tremendously since her losses to Rose Namajunas to lose her title.
“Sometimes fighters hang around too long, I don’t think that was the case for Joanna, but Zhang Weili is just in another stage of her career. Whereas Joanna wants to be a mother and a businesswoman,” Cormier said. “They’re very close in age, but Weili doesn’t have any desires to do any of those other things. All she wants to be is the world champion, and it was on full display on Saturday night. I thought Joanna had a chance, but once I saw it I was like, oh man, it sucks, but it kind of is what it is. And then she walks away, and I was so happy to be able to sit there and talk to her as she made that retirement speech.”
When the Weili-Esparza fight might happen is uncertain, but it will likely happen later this year and when it does, Cormier believes Weili will be a massive betting favorite.
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