SINGAPORE – Like Joe Rogan, Daniel Cormier doesn’t care if you critique his commentary.
He was put on blast in 2021 by his broadcast partner Dominick Cruz, who claimed the former UFC dual-champ did not do homework for fights.
Since then, Cormier hashed things out with Cruz and is accustomed to not being everyone’s cup of tea. Rogan recently received criticism for both his commentary and podcast hosting, and Cormier admires his ability to brush things off.
“Indifference is a problem,” Cormier told MMA Junkie. “I’ve taken that from my fighting career where people were kind of divided on me. You had the guys that cheered and the people that booed and it’s the same thing with commentary. I know how hard I work at this. I know how much time I spend preparing for this. I know (what) I try to give these guys and tell their stories and do them justice. Sometimes, people just don’t see what you see and that’s really on them. But I’m not apologizing for doing my job, and I think that’s the beauty in being a fighter.
“People can be mad at you, but it’s like we just gotta talk about it, right? I’m not a guy that – they gotta move a little different around me. I don’t really worry about it too much. Rogan told me, I was on some, ‘Ah the fans, this, this’ and then Rogan said it on air. He goes, ‘Oh, you gotta be careful with our bias commentary.’ He just doesn’t care. He just does not care because the reality is it does not matter. You’re put in a position to do a job that is very, very difficult and very few people in the world can do it, so you do it to the best of your ability.”
Cormier has been in tough spots where he’s had to commentate his teammates’ fights. In order to avoid looking biased, he takes a different approach, which still causes him problems.
“I don’t watch this with a bias,” Cormier said. “If my teammates are fighting, I hope that they win. But unfortunately when that happens, I tend to go the opposite way. Blagoy (Ivanov) was mad at me after his last fight because he he was like, ‘DC, bro, I was doing good things, but you almost made it seem like…’ I tend to go the opposite way to try not to. Deron Winn when he’s fighting he’s like ‘Dude.’ It’s hard because you’re a human being. That’s why at a point I can sympathize with the referees and the judges because they’re human beings.”
Taking Joe Rogan’s advice, Daniel Cormier no longer cares about criticism and claims of bias
