Miocic retained the undisputed UFC heavyweight champion with a unanimous decision over Daniel Cormier in the UFC 252 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. All three judges sided with Miocic (20-3, 14-3 UFC): 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47. He completes his historic trilogy against Cormier with a 2-1 edge in their head-to-head series.
Miocic controlled long stretches of the fight in the clinch along the fence, where he stalled and frustrated the American Kickboxing Academy captain. He nearly finished Cormier at the end of the second round, as he chased down Cormier with sweeping right hands, dropped him at the base of the cage and moved to a crouched full mount, at which point he unleashed his ground-and-pound. Had a few more seconds been on the clock, Miocic might have ended it.
Cormier (22-3, 11-3 UFC) staggered Miocic with clubbing right hands in the first and fourth rounds, snapped back the champion’s head with stiff jabs and mixed in a few leg kicks. However, he suffered a horrendous third-round eye poke that left him with compromised vision for the remainder of the fight. Miocic steered clear of danger in the fifth round by pinning “DC” to the fence, scoring with shoulder strikes and running out the remaining time.
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