Daniel Cormier (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

Some fans at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas didn’t approve of the wrestling strategy Daniel Cormier used to defeat Anderson Silva, and the light-heavyweight champ was quick to comment on the boos.

Cormier took Silva to the mat several times during their UFC 200 bout, and controlled the action from there. “DC” attempted to stay busy from the top, but Silva did a fairly good job defending Cormier’s strikes.

Following Cormier’s decision win over Silva, the accomplished wrestler had this to say about his game plan while talking to FOX Sports (quote via FOX Sports press release):

“It’s difficult. Was I supposed to go out and knock him out? It’s Anderson Silva. Sometimes you can do something very detrimental to the success. If he won, I wouldn’t have lost the belt and he would have gone back down to fight Bisping for the middleweight championship.”

The fight did feature some striking exchanges, and in the third round, Silva hurt Cormier with a perfectly placed, liver kick.

“He hurt me with a body kick. It’s when the toe catches you. It hurt. He’s dangerous, you never know what’s coming. It took the wind out of me and I was thinking, ‘grab him, grab him.’ Anderson did this on two days. The only thing that matters is he took this. I can’t say enough about Anderson Silva.”

Silva agreed to face Cormier on two days notice, after Jon Jones was pulled from the event due to a potential anti-doping violation.