Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Heavyweight champion, Daniel Cormier, did not let his knockout loss to Stipe Miocic at UFC 241 stop him from giving an inspirational speech to the Texas A&M football team.
“DC” made the trip to College Station, Texas to talk to the football team ahead of their season debut against Texas State on August 29, 2019. And in true Cormier form, he spoke about how important it is to embrace the grind.
“Fall in love with the grind,” he began as transcribed by BJPenn.com. “Fall in love with the idea of getting up every morning, going to class knowing, at the hottest part of the day, you have to put your pads on and go practice,” he added.
“Fall in love with that. Make yourself love that. Make yourself love that. Make that the best part of your day. If you make that hard thing the best part of your day, everything else is easy.”
Training alongside some of the best fighters to ever step foot inside the Octagon such as Luke Rockhold, Cain Velasquez and Khabib Nurmagomedov, “DC” knows firsthand what it’s like to grind his way though a daily training session. Furthermore, getting a last start to his MMA career may have set lesser man back, but “DC” embraced it and went on to become one of the best to ever do it.
“Every single time it pays off, every time it pays off, you’re going to appreciate it even more and more and more,” Cormier continued. “It’s all part of that same thing I was saying: commitment and responsibility to being successful. Be responsible for loving that moment. My headgear — those things we put on before we spar — it stinks so bad. It makes me almost puke every time I put it on. But I know every time I put that on, it’s time for me to go fight,” he concluded.
Cormier’s loss to Miocic was just the second defeat of career. Despite the setback, “DC” did not commit to retirement, something he said would definitely happen this year. And with UFC president Dana White dangling a trilogy fight in front of him, we could very well see the ex 265-pound and 205-pound champion in there one more time.
Much to the chagrin of this guy, I’m sure.
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