Daniel Cormier (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

Stipe Miocic turned to his wrestling to score a decision win over Francis Ngannou in January, but Daniel Cormier says if it had been him in that position, he would have finished the feared slugger.

Cormier is returning to heavyweight at UFC 226 Saturday to challenge the champ Miocic. While discussing the latter’s victory over Ngannou at UFC 220, the light-heavyweight champ had this to say (quote via MMA Fighting):

“Man, this dude is a good champion — he is,” Cormier said. “And I love Francis Ngannou. I think he’s a great guy. But if I spent 22 minutes on top of him, I would have gotten four or five submissions and found a way to get some TKO stoppages.”

“…Nobody’s really pushed him in [wrestling],” Cormier added, while discussing how he matches up with Miocic. “I’m not anticipating that it’s going to be easy to take him down. I just know that the longer I can make us grapple, the better the odds are for me. Guy, I’ll tell you this, there are oddsmakers for a reason. They instilled me as the underdog and it’s great. Stipe Miocic is in a completely different situation. Last time [at UFC 220], he got disrespected. I feel I’m getting disrespected. Stipe Miocic is fighting a guy that, he’s never seen anything like this.”

Cormier also competed at UFC 220 and he stopped Volkan Oezdemir in the second round.