AUSTIN, Texas – Phil Hawes and Daniel Cormier were caught bickering back-and-forth in the cage during Saturday’s broadcast.
Shortly after stopping Cormier teammate Deron Winn at UFC on ESPN 37, Hawes shouted at Cormier as the officials were getting ready to read the result. Cormier, who was on duty as color commentator, was stepping in the octagon to talk to Hawes for his in-cage, post-fight interview. And as soon as he heard from Hawes, he didn’t sit quiet and fired back. It was an unexpected scene.
“You picked the wrong pony,” Hawes shouted at Cormier. “Yeah, you dog. You know what I’m talking about. I’ll cool off and then next week you can fight me.”
“I don’t pick fights,” Cormier said. “Be respectful. You didn’t beat me. I don’t pick fights. Look at what happened. Why would I want this fight? You can do it better than that. Don’t do that.”
Hawes started beefing with DC and then apologized pic.twitter.com/4XcGUCwIqE
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(@ImAntoMMA) June 18, 2022
That was the end of their argument, and the broadcast proceeded as normal. It’s unknown what exactly triggered the back-and-forth, but Hawes addressed it backstage with the media and took the blame for the incident.
“It was a misunderstanding on my behalf,” Hawes told reporters. “DC is such a great role model to me. He’s a two-weight world champion and just a freaking stellar dude. So it was just a bit of miscommunication and wrong place, wrong time. I apologize. DC, please don’t beat me up.”
With the victory over Winn, Hawes was able to return to the win column. He was coming off a knockout loss to Chris Curtis at UFC 268 in November 2021. That stands as his only loss in the UFC. Hawes is 8-1 in his past nine outings, with five of those being under the UFC banner.
