DC to fans: ‘If you want me to be your bad guy, I’ll be your bad guy’
UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier talks about the differences on how he has been received and treated by fans over the years.
It can be said that UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has a love-hate relationship with MMA fans. There was a time when he received nothing but boos, but these days, at least, he seems to be well-loved whenever he would be in front of large audiences.
But according to Cormier, he never changed his approach whenever dealing with fans.
“I don’t know what I did. I didn’t really do anything,” Cormier said during Tuesday’s TUF 27 media tour (via MMA Fighting). “I did the exact same thing. They decide when they like you and when they don’t.”
“When I went out there that first time and they booed me with Jon [Jones], I just played the bad guy. I will say all the stuff you hate me saying,” Cormier explained. “You hate that I make fun of [Jon Jones] for his addictions? I will say every one of those addictions and I’ll list them all out.”
“Before it was like, I don’t think they’ll boo me for it. Okay, you’ll boo me for it? You don’t like that? I’d kind of feel out what people liked and didn’t like. And the things I got the most hate, on Twitter, I would start to say it in public. If you want me to be your bad guy, I’ll be your bad guy. I just kind of gauge it.”
“DC” is currently coaching TUF 27 against Stipe Miocic, and the two men have been nothing but respectful towards each other, so far. From the get-go, he saw no point in creating a rift with the current heavyweight champion.
“If it’s not genuine, people can see through that,” said Cormier. “If I start putting on that I hate Stipe Miocic, after going to Cleveland and doing a show on him and being around him and being friends with him, all of a sudden I hate him, people will be like ‘what, that makes no sense.’
“That might actually turn people off from watching the fight, ‘this is too fake I can’t deal with it.’ I want to give a true accounting of what I am and what Stipe and I’s relationship truly is.”
Cormier and Miocic will headline UFC 226 on July 7th in Las Vegas, with the heavyweight title on the line.