The UFC 210 weigh-in controversy will leave an indelible mark on Daniel Cormier’s second submission victory over Anthony Johnson.
It looked really bad.
The UFC light heavyweight champion had a tough, tough cut. The fact that he only emerged to weigh-in just before the deadline backs up his comments on the matter. Then when he did tip the scales, it read 206.2 lbs, 1.2 lbs over championship weight.
DC can count his blessings that the fight took place in Buffalo, New York. If pretty much any other commission was involved, he would not have been allowed a second chance. But, this was the Big Apple and he came back less than three minutes later and held a towel to make 205 lb on the button.
Losing that much weight in a ludicrously short time period had people asking serious questions. The use of the towel was also made suspicious by the videos explaining how a towel could be used to trick a scale into displaying a lighter weight.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSpIn2xgQD5/
His arch nemesis Jon Jones couldn’t believe what he had witnessed. In his eyes, Cormier had used ‘blatant foul play’ in order to make weight.
Obviously, Cormier couldn’t let the only man to ever beat him inside the Octagon have the last word on the matter. During the post-fight press conference he issued his response. The only problem was he clearly focused on scoring points on ‘Bones’, as opposed to clearing up what went down.
“It’s like you sit there and you take a table, put a whole bunch of kitchen appliances. At the end of one side, there’s a pot, and at the other side is a kettle. That pot starts yelling, ‘you’re dirty!’ while you’re sitting there with a steroid needle. That’s my opinion on that.”
“You sit over there pot, with your cialis or whatever that shit’s called. Get over there. Sit over there, pot, in detention. Cialis boy.”
"I couldn't believe what I was witnessing." https://t.co/BBVGCUdKit
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 8, 2017
There was a genuine concern that the press conference would have been our last opportunity to hear Cormier’s version of how the controversy played out. Fortunately, he appeared on this week’s MMA Hour to give his side of the story.
“When I got off the scale the first time, I walked away, and they didn’t cover me. So obviously, a guy thinks that he’s losing everything that he’s worked for on the scale, and we just walk back off the scale and nobody even worried about protecting me. So I was like, you know what, I’m going to hold the towel a little bit myself to make sure that I’m covered.”
“Now, the reality is, I didn’t even realise I was doing that until I saw pictures, honestly. I’ve got to be completely honest with you, I didn’t even realise I was doing that. I was tired. I was very discouraged and upset because of after that had just happened, so I didn’t even realise that I was doing it.”
As for missing weight on the first attempt, Cormier blames the scales. He claims that he had weighed himself before stepping on the official scales and was on weight.
“I was complaining, like, ‘the scale is not right. I was like, ‘this is BS, I want to re-weigh.”
With the latest being that ‘Rumble’ is filing a complaint about the weigh-in debacle, the fight after the fight might just have the arse dragged out of it for the next while. I suppose we could always cover the shame with a well-placed towel.
