It seems nearly impossible to mention Daniel Cormier and his reign as UFC light heavyweight champion without mentioning the great, glaring elephant in the room.
That elephant is Jon Jones, of course, and he casts a shadow as deep and wide as it is long across the rest of the division. The former champion—and make no mistake about it, he is the former champion even if he never lost the title in the Octagon—is constantly on the tip of our tongues, even in the midst of great and gritty performances put on by Cormier and others in his absence.
On this, there should be no controversy. Cormier is the UFC's light heavyweight champion. Not the interim champion. Not the fake champion. He is the full and undisputed titleholder. He did not beat Jones, but he became the champion because Jones could not act like the champion. This is a blood business, but it is a business, and it is not good for business when high-profile champions are involved in incidents like the one that unraveled around Jones in Albuquerque this year.
The UFC had no choice in the matter. They needed to suspend Jones, and they needed to strip him of the championship. They needed to build a foundation and show there are consequences to actions, not just for Jones himself, but for others who will follow in his footsteps.
Cormier was handed an opportunity, and you can't blame him for taking it. Nobody in their right mind would have said no when the UFC came calling that day. Again, through all of this, it must be remembered that Jones beat Cormier. He did. Cormier did not beat Jones to earn the championship, but it is the real championship all the same.
All of that is a long way of saying that what happened on Saturday night at UFC 192 in Houston was a great championship fight. Perhaps not one for the ages, and perhaps not a fight you slot up there with the greatest of all time. But it was a rough, tough and durable performance from both Cormier and Gustafsson, two men of heart and will and iron and blood who proved, if nothing else, that they are made of the stuff the greats are made of.
Cormier came out in the first round and summarily picked up Gustafsson over his head, twirled him in the air and then slammed him on the mat. It seemed an ominous start for the lanky Swede. But, as these things often go, it turned around quickly. Gustafsson has proven himself in wars before—most notably against Jones himself—and he showed once again that he will quite literally take anything you can throw at him and mostly remain standing.
Gustafsson fired away in the second round, even dropping the champion with a brutal knee in the final seconds. Everything was tied up, and it seemed like momentum was shifting from the Cormier side to the other direction.
But Cormier, who has spent a lifetime battling tragedy and hardship while continually grinding things out in one of the toughest sports in the world, just kept coming. He didn't quit. He was constantly in Gustafsson's face, so much so that the Swede was forced—on more than a handful of occasions—to turn and run away just to catch a moment of something resembling peace.
And still Cormier kept coming, running after Gustafsson, throwing punches at his back and head. The fight remained somewhat close, though Gustafsson's face was a bloody mess and his nose in shambles by the end of the fight. And yet, much like his loss to Jones, Gustafsson was further defined by losing to Cormier. He is a great fighter, with plenty of skill and technique. But more than that, he is one of the toughest men walking the planet Earth.
After, Cormier dropped the pre-fight rhetoric that he'd used to sell the fight.
"I"m moving away from promos, and I'm going to be myself," Cormier said. "I want to thank Alex here tonight, because he made me a better man."
The truth is that both men are better than most of us are or ever could be. They are better at fighting, of course; this is without question. But at UFC 192, we saw a kind of steel-clad heart that is so very rare in all walks of life. Both men took more punishment than I could take in a lifetime.
Both kept moving and fighting and never giving up. And it's in moments like this when the best parts of mixed martial arts are revealed. Everything else—the unsavory parts of our nature—are washed away, and what is left are two men who represent the toughest and best of us all.
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