Daniel Cormier had a very odd altercation with Phil Hawes at UFC Austin where the two men were jawing at each other in the cage. Things were getting heated and it looked like things were about to get physical between the two.
Phil Hawes had a clear problem with Daniel Cormier and he was calling him out after his big win at UFC Austin. Cormier took to his YouTube channel to explain what happened and where it stemmed from.
“Fight ends, I get up to go do the interview,” Cormier said via YouTube after UFC Austin (h/t MMAFighting). “As soon as the fight’s over, I press the cough button, drop my head set, and I walk towards the ring, and I can hear Phil yelling at [commentators Dominick Cruz and Brendan Fitzgerald], ‘Where’s DC? Where’s DC?’ while I was walking into the octagon. I step into the octagon and Phil is doing something that we call in Louisiana, ‘Booting up.’ This dude’s booting up on me. Phil’s like this, ‘What’s up, man? What’s up?’ And I was like, what is going on? He’s booting up on me. So I’m like, ‘Me?’ to Phil. And Phil’s kind of telling me that I picked the wrong opponent. Well, if you want to know where that stems from, here it is. I’ll tell you exactly what it stems from.
“When I was in Abu Dhabi, before [when] Phil was managed by this guy named Daniel Rubenstein, he asked me to sit with Phil at Fight Island. Phil and I sat with his advisor, a guy that he’s very close to and we talked and we spoke and then we talked about Phil coming out to AKA to train with me. What happened next was the UFC called and asked for Deron Winn to fight Phil Hawes.”
The confusion came after the UFC tried to book Deron Winn against Phil Hawes but Daniel Cormier turned down the fight. Hawes found and took things personally when the fight was finally booked, believing Cormier thought it was an easy fight for Winn.
“I said ‘no’ to the fight,” UFC star Cormier said. “I didn’t think it was a great fight and obviously look at what played out. It’s not like I was wrong in my thought in regards to the matchup. So Phil is saying I picked the wrong opponent. So I say to Phil, ‘Do you think I pick fights? Do you think I make the fights?’ I go, ‘Phil, that’s ridiculous. I don’t make the fights, my friend. Be respectful. Be respectful.’
“Phil being the great guy that he is, he immediately gets that. Phil’s not a bad guy, that’s what people don’t understand. I hold no ill will towards Phil Hawes for last weekend. He’s high on adrenaline, he had the best performance of his entire career. He feels like King Kong, he feels great out there, he’s hyped up, he’s got this idea — probably something that has motivated him throughout the entire camp — to go and put me in my place because I picked him as Deron’s opponent. The reality is I didn’t do that.”
Daniel Cormier admitted he started to get heated at UFC Austin and had to calm himself down before addressing Phil Hawes. Hawes beating Deron Winn was a little bit like he beat Cormier.
“I think a lot of guys deal with this,” former UFC champion Cormier said. “Myself, Khabib Nurmagomedov. The moment somebody beats one of those guys [Nurmagomedov is associated with], they’re going to feel like they beat Khabib. When people beat my son in a wrestling match, they feel like they got something over on me, but they’re not. They didn’t beat me and that’s what I told Phil. That’s what I told Phil, I go, ‘Phil, you didn’t beat me.’
“Now at this point, I’m a little bit pissed off. Because I’m like, ‘Wow, what is going on here?’ I’m from Louisiana and I’m a fighter and you cannot turn that off. But Phil, to his defense, immediately recognizes that he may be in the wrong. His entire team’s off to the side going, ‘DC, it’s all good’ behind him, he’s just warped up. Everybody came and shaked my hand and we go back and we do the interview. Two professionals doing exactly what we were supposed to do.”
There is no beef currently between Daniel Cormier and Phil Hawes despite the altercation at UFC Austin. If anything, Cormier believes Hawes has the potential to become champion.
“I have nothing but respect for him and if he fights in the manner that he fought on Saturday, this kid has all the potential in the world to be a world champion,” Cormier said. “That is how good I believe Phil Hawes is. I think he can be world champ if he fights like he did last weekend. He’s that good.”
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