Daniel Cormier’s commentary skills have often been criticized. Most recently one of his colleagues in the commentary booth – Dominic Cruz said he’d prefer to mute Cormier.
“When it comes to ‘DC,’ I usually mute it. I love DC, he’s my friend, but to me, from my experience, he doesn’t do the homework. He wants to get in and out, get the job done, make his money, and I think he cares about us but it’s just different. He doesn’t do the preparation from my experience.”
And while his peers have one set of complaints – the mma fandom has an entirely different one. For starters Cormier often commentates the fights of members of his team, American Kickboxing Academy. During these fights, Cormier often fawns all over the fighters and mostly fanboys. This was particularly apparent when it came to Khabib Nurmagomedov fights, Islam Makhachev and more.
This latest case is slightly different. Cormier, who once represented USA in wrestling, seemed to showcase a particular bias against Tai Tuivasa.
The co-main event for UFC 271 was a real banger for lack of a better term. Tuivasa showed up and showed off in front of home town hero Derrick Lewis. Tuivasa withstood a barrage of ground and pound after trying to work on takedowns in round 1. He came back from that and delivered a spectacular elbow finish.
In the second round, Tuivasa edged out the American finishing him with one of the hardest elbows that we’ve ever seen in the octagon.
This angle is insane pic.twitter.com/AVfPt19jDM
— Ben Davis (@BenTheBaneDavis) February 13, 2022
But check out how restrained Cormier is in the fall out from the epic finishing sequence:
Previously Cormier slammed accusations of bias saying:
“How could I be biased to Islam? What could I have possibly said positive about Dan Hooker in that fight? There is no bias whenever a fight is clearly on one side,” Cormier argued via “Debate DC” on Vover podcast.
“I think it’s absurd. I don’t agree at all,” he exclaimed.
“I have called Khabib’s fights, Luke Rockhold, Deron Winn, Islam Makhachev, I’ve called all of their fights and I feel like I have done their opponents justice,” he insisted. “I go out of my way to make sure that we do their opponents justice. I’m a professional and for as much as I love my teammates, I understand the difference to separate myself from that.”
“Look man, if you’re not getting critiqued then you’re not doing a great job,” he continued.
And this wasn’t the only time Cormier was made to address biased commentary claims. He issued a similar response when a fan criticized his (and Joe Rogan’s) UFC 259 commentary during Jan Blachowicz vs Israel Adesanya.
“I just rewatched. I don’t agree at all. I was actually speaking to Jan and the times he was successful. I had fight 2-2 going into 5 and after watching it again I feel same way. Nothing changed. And btw Jan did bite on a ton of fakes and feints. Izzy didn’t capitalize,” Cormier responded to a disgruntled fan on social media.