A high school wrestling coach almost made a horrible mistake by baiting UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier into a fight.
UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier, five years removed from the end of his fighting career, is still someone you don't want to upset. During his physical prime, he dismantled some of the best light heavyweights and heavyweights in UFC history on his way to winning championships in two different divisions.
Cormier has been a top UFC analyst and one of the most respected high school wrestling coaches in the United States since he hung up the gloves. In addition to his regular appearances on UFC broadcasts, he is the head coach of the Gilroy (CA) High School wrestling team.
While preparing his kids for a major wrestling tournament a few days ago, a coach at another school almost tried to fight Cormier before cooler heads finally prevailed. The intervention prevented the self-centered coach from sustaining serious damage at the hands of the former UFC star.
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Daniel Cormier almost made a self-centered wrestling coach pay the price for bullying tactics
On a recent edition of Good Guy/Bad Guy with Chael Sonnen, Cormier shared how a recent altercation with a wrestling coach almost turned ugly.
“It's happened to me quite a bit lately. I was at a tournament in Clovis and a good friend of mine asked him to use the wrestling room,” Cormier said. “One of the other coaches goes into the wrestling room, see [my team] in there…he's angry and throws them out. I go up to him and say, 'Hey man, what happened?'. And that guy's starting to get mad at me! Big guy, this guy must be 300 pounds, tall, he wants to beat me up. I've never met this man in my life and he wants to kick my ass. But you know, even if it's nothing, if he and I are talking and we're kind of nose-to-nose, and they come over and try to stop it, then it becomes something. Even if it's not an argument, the perception is that these guys are about to fight because there are other people around.
“We broke up and I said to my boyfriend, 'I respect your opinion. But this man, I don't care'. It really pisses him off,” Cormier continued. “So we're walking between the gyms… comes up to me again and I was staring at him… and I said, 'Everyone wants to be a tough guy, until you have to do tough stuff.' You're only doing this because you know I can't do to you what I want to do to you'… and I wanted to kick him! And he said: 'You're going to try!'. Are you going to try it? I thought to myself that this man must be a police officer because the only way he would treat me this way was if he knew I couldn't get my hands on him. It was one of the worst cases of someone trying to get me to fight them.”
Despite retiring from the Octagon in 2020, Cormier has had several issues since making the full-time transition to broadcasting. He and UFC welterweight Joaquin Buckley became embroiled in a public feud over Cormier's public criticism of Buckley's recent call-up of Conor McGregor.
Daniel Cormier is not a guy you want to mess with
During his fighting career, Cormier defeated the likes of Stipe Miocic, Derrick Lewis, Alexander Gustafsson and Dan Henderson inside the cage. He became one of the few UFC stars to win championships in multiple divisions, and only the second UFC titleholder in simultaneous two divisions in the promotion's history.
Cormier was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2022, along with his longtime friend and teammate Khabib Nurmagomedov. Amid the ongoing pound-for-pound debate, Cormier's name is a forgotten name that deserves to be in the mix.
Fortunately, Cormier didn't have to use what he learned in MMA against a vocal rival wrestling coach, and tensions quickly rose. But the unnamed coach might want to think twice before trying to bully one of the most dangerous men in the world.
Related posts
Comments