Daniel Cormier beats Stipe Miocic in the rematch. Here’s why?

Daniel Cormier achieved an unprecedented milestone when he knocked out the most successful heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic. The first match lasted for mere 4mins and 31 secs. And both of these fighters had their moments in the match. Stipe started strong, but as the match progressed DC got his wicked combinations going and knocked Stipe out eventually with a perfect punch.

Things are different this time in the rematch. A hungry Stipe will be coming to get back his title and DC will be looking to cement his legacy as the greatest of all time. And there is bad blood between these two now. So we can expect some fireworks on UFC 241.

Before we predict what’s going to happen in the rematch, let’s see what skillsets these elite fighters will bring to the octagon.

Stipe Miocic:

Stipe Miocic, a division 1 wrestler and a golden globe boxing champion, beat Fabricio Werdum to be the heavyweight champion back in 2016 in Brazil and since then he has been unbeaten and undisputed.
Miocic has a solid wrestling background and he can wrestle for a five straight round as we saw in his fight against Francis. Without a doubt, he can trade punches with the best strikers in UFC as we saw in his fight against Junior Dos Santos and Overeem. Both JDS and Overeem are two fo the finest strikers in the heavyweight divisions. But Stipe knocked both of them out.

Now coming to the power-punching ability, Stipe is the real deal. It’s insane how hard can Stipe hit. He knocked Werdum out when he was moving backward. So it’s safe to say that he can for sure knock Cormier out if he connects. And last but not the least, Stipe ate the best shot Ngannou had to offer and then dominated him for the next four rounds on the ground. You can not doubt a man’s chin if he can take the punches from Ngannou and still survives. So overall Stipe is one of the toughest fighters the heavyweight division has ever seen.

Daniel Cormier:

But what most of us tend to forget is Daniel Cormier is a real heavyweight. He was the Strike force heavyweight champion before his UFC career. He even had his first fight against the former heavyweight champion, Frank Mir and dominated Mir for 15 mins especially when they were in the clinch. So one thing we can conclude is DC can go toe to toe with the best heavyweights.

Now coming to the skillsets of Cormier, DC is one of the best wrestlers in UFC. How many times have we seen Daniel Cormier tossing his opponents in the air and then controlling them on the ground with ease? In the first match with Stipe, we didn’t get to see any wrestling from both the fighters. But we can put an argument that DC is a superior wrestler than Stipe.
Daniel Cormier has fought some skilled and powerful strikers such as Anthony Johnson, Ben Henderson, Anderson Silva, Derrick Lewis. And DC won all of them. The only guy to knock DC out at light heavyweight is Jon Jones, who we all can agree is the best lightweight fighter ever. So we can safely say that DC can take a punch.
Alexander Gustafsson is one of the best boxers in UFC and DC went five rounds with him to defend his lightweight title successfully.

Fight Analysis:

So we have two fighters good at all the departments of the game. Be it wrestling or striking, both DC and Stipe can be formidable opponents. Both fighters can go five rounds without any issues. So how one fighter is going to outperform the other?

There are a few reasons for which I believe DC is going to be victorious again. Stipe didn’t respect Cormier’s power in the first fight. He was charging towards DC the whole time and DC connected with some effective punches before getting into a clinch with Stipe for the final blow. Stipe has a significant reach advantage over DC and normally DC is the guy moving towards his opponents to close the gap and look for a takedown or a clinch because of the reach disadvantage. Hence if Stipe does the same thing again, he will be doing DC a favor cause that’s where DC is most comfortable at.
If the fight goes on for a longer period we can see Stipe and DC wrestle and DC can do some damage if the fight goes to the ground. His pressure is overwhelming. However, it won’t be that easy to hold Stipe down for long, but as the fight goes deeper I can see DC getting on top of Stipe.
Apart from that, Stipe has not been active since his last fight which was one year ago. This layoff may work in favor of Stipe or work against him. We saw Conor Mcgregor getting dominated when he fought Khabib after a two-year layoff. So that might be a factor in the rematch.
In the end, you can’t be too sure about the fight game. It won’t be surprising if Stipe knocks Cormier out in the first round. Cause he has the power advantage over DC. But it has been proven multiple times that you can’t beat Cormier with just power. If you are not comfortable in the clinch or the ground, then DC will take you to deep water and drown you there. So keeping all that in mind, we can put an argument that DC is going to get his hands raised again come Saturday in the main event of UFC 241.

Related: Nate Diaz vs Anthony Pettis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZWIQyl–qw&t=1363s