Stipe Miocic says Anderson Silva helped him beat Daniel Cormier
Stipe Miocic relied on legend, Anderson Silva to beat Daniel Cormier at UFC 241.
Early on in the fight, it was Cormier who was having all the success. He was using his wrestling and striking to negate Miocic. The Cleveland native just could not get anything going and he knew he was doing terrible. He then starteed to wonder if he even was good.
“It was terrible (the beginning of the fight), my God. It seemed that I could not fight,” Miocic said to Combate. “I thought, ‘should I be here? Then I started to open more, found the distance and began to see openings. Okay, we’re fine, I get it now”
Then, however, before the start of the fourth round in his corner, they remembered Anderson Silva and his fight against Daniel Cormier. There at UFC 200, the Brazilian had success going to the body of ‘DC’ and they figured why not try it out. Ultimately, it worked tremendously as he continued to go after the body which set up the TKO win.
“In the third round (I decided to change my strategy). I started to see it between the third and fourth rounds. My coaches were talking to me and I said ‘let’s attack his body’. He leaves it really open and nobody takes advantage of it,” he explained. “I remember Anderson Silva hit him with a body kick and that hurt him a little bit, so I thought of attacking him there, and it worked.”
With the win, Stipe Miocic is once again the heavyweight champion of the world and could very well be considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time. But, beating Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 241 was all in thanks to Anderson Silva and how he fought ‘DC’ years ago. Whether or not they would have attacked the body without that fight is unknown.
